By The ancient tradition of bonding over a plate of food contributed to a special night in which different dishes of Latin America highlighted the diversity within Sigma Lambda Gamma at California State University, Long Beach.
The Cultural Potluck on Tuesday was a night where different cultures and food collided to promote bonding and sisterhood.
“I’m really excited about the papusas because I’ve never had it before,” Micaela Vargas, the president of the chapter and a senior liberal studies major, said.
The papusas, a Salvadorian dish, symbolized the different cultures within the Latino community including Mexican, Ecuadorian and Salvadoran.
“It just represents where we came from,” Kacy Rodriguez, a senior health science major and Community Service Chair of Sigma Lambda Gamma, said. “We’re really embracing the different cultures on our campus.”
Vargas said that Sigma Lambda Gamma makes it their “mission” to get the community involved in different events. The cultural potluck was part of Gamma Week for Sigma Lambda Gamma, which is a week where each of the sorority’s principles are promoted every day through a different themed event or workshop.
The events include a presentation by a lawyer about individual rights concerning sex, alcohol and drugs, a bra collection charity that would be held for victims of sex trafficking and a day reserved for academics where the sisters of the sorority could study together.
“We always stay on top of [school],” Rodriguez said. “We help each other because a lot of us have similar majors.”
“Having events like these really gives people a different view of the sororities and fraternities on campus,” Audrey Chang, a junior psychology major, said. “It’s not all about the drugs and the partying, they’re actually really involved in improving the community.”
For the future, Sigma Lambda Gamma hopes to have more events like these that promote diversity and bring the community together, sisters said. As for this event, they have one simple goal:
“We’re just hoping for positive people who respect each other and the cultures where they come from,” Rodriguez said. “It’s more about the quality than the quantity.”
