The newly formed Cultural Diversity Committee (CDC) is hosting its first Cultural Remix Fair from April 9 to April 11 on the HUB lawn to celebrate, understand and promote diversity at the UW.

“We’re trying to get the whole community together,” said committee officer Datev Salibian. “We’re actually the first student organization to try to get every aspect of the community at the UW to come together and promote diversity. We’re working together and going to school together, so we should learn about diversity together.”

CDC chair Luis Ortega said the committee sees the fair as the first step toward the UW increasing its affinity for diversity.

“I keep seeing that the University of Washington has the word ‘diversity’ in every single pamphlet and flier that I see, but do people really appreciate it? Do people really understand it? Do people even think about it?” he said.

About 40 different student organizations will participate in the fair to address diversity through dance and music performances, games and workshops and to promote their own programs.

“[The event] is also about providing a venue for people to learn about these different opportunities that exist on campus, because the word ‘diversity’ also fits in with diversity of opportunities, diversity of different things that are out there,” Ortega said. “But students don’t take advantage of them because they don’t know about them.”

The fair kicked off April 7 at 6:30 p.m. in Kane Hall 120. At the kickoff, members of CDC showed a documentary on diversity at the UW. The documentary, titled “Many Voices, Different Roots, One Remix: Understanding Diversity,” which featured UW students, faculty and administration and their views on campus diversity.

“The documentary was not in our original plans, but we decided to do that because we thought we needed something exciting and engaging for the students,” CDC officer Daniel Miller said. “We wanted to have real faces and real people that everyone sees. And we felt we can’t just tell people what diversity is on campus. We have to show them and get everyone’s opinion.”

Miller clarified his definition of diversity, including aspects beyond race and ethnicity.

“It’s important, I think, especially in an institute of learning, to have a diverse pool of opinions and backgrounds,” Miller said. “And we’re not just talking about ethnicity and race as diversity. We’re talking about religion, whether you grew up on the West Coast or the East Coast. We’re talking about all aspects of diversity.”

On the last day of the event, CDC plans to set up a stage on the HUB lawn for anyone who wishes to express him- or herself.

“They can dance, they can do a musical interpretation, they can do poems, they can talk about how they feel, who they are, how they’re contributing to this space that we share,” Ortega said. “Through that, we’re hoping that people will appreciate difference and, not only that, but that they relate with each other from there and they’ll try to work with each other.”

Ortega said that overall, the committee wants to send the message that everyone at the UW has their differences, but that we have our similarities as well.

“It’s important to understand [our differences] so we can realize where we are similar and where is it that we can work together,” Ortega said. “Yes, all of us are different, but all of us are students at UW. No matter where we come from, no matter what we’ve done in the past — all of us are still students.”

[Reach reporter Sara Bruestle at news@thedaily.washington.edu.]