Riverdale/Kingsbridge Academy celebrates global cultures at student-led diversity day

At Riverdale/Kingsbridge Academy, also known as RKA, the gymnasium transformed into a global showcase April 23, where dozens of cultures were represented through student-led tables featuring vibrant foods, traditional crafts and handmade poster boards.

The school’s second annual Cultural Diversity Day built on years of multicultural programming, expanding it into a more immersive experience  — a space where students not only learned about one another, but took the lead in teaching.

Matthew Rosenberg, an English as a New Language teacher and RKA’s multicultural committee chair, said the scale of diversity across the academy’s roughly 1,400 students required an approach that actively reflected students’ cultures in both the classroom and school community.

“We have 35 languages spoken at the school and students from over 46 countries,” Rosenberg noted.

That breadth, staff said, drove a shift in how cultural programming takes shape. While the school had long marked yearly cultural observances — including Black History Month and Asian Pacific Islander American Heritage Month — students began expressing a desire for something more expansive.

Assistant Principal Miledys Prado, who also serves as the school’s cultural diversity chair, said the idea for the fair emerged directly from those conversations.

“I had a really close relationship with the students and they would tell me sometimes that they felt that their culture was never celebrated,” she shared.

In response, Prado and her colleagues sought out to create a space where RKA’s teens could take ownership of how their cultures were represented. The result was a lively student-driven event where each table reflected a different country or cultural background, often incorporating traditional dishes, clothing and personal histories. 

Families were a central part of that effort, helping to bring authenticity and pride to each display.

“Parents were dying to come in to participate, to help,” Prado said. “And it turned into something really amazing where they brought in food, they brought in different traditional attire, and they participated proudly in a little mini fashion show that we did where they were able to show off their cultural attire.”

The diversity event was meant to offer more than just festivities, explained RKA School Counselor Johanna Cuello-Gutierrez. It served as a platform for students to better understand themselves and one another in a way that traditional classroom settings often cannot.

“It’s an opportunity to celebrate, but it’s also a bigger opportunity to share,” she said.

“They are excited to share all of the things that are part of their identity.”

The initiative was also rooted in validation, she added, giving students the space to recognize their own strengths and backgrounds as assets rather than obstacles.

The school’s curriculum has increasingly shifted to reflect that philosophy, according to Prado, through what educators describe as culturally responsive teaching, allowing students to see themselves in what they learn.

“It’s really impossible to look at American history without taking into account diverse perspectives,” Rosenberg added, pointing to lessons that highlight the contributions of groups like the Tuskegee Airmen and Japanese American soldiers during World War II.

At this year’s Cultural Diversity Day,  those ideas took on a more tangible form, with students representing their heritage while answering questions, sharing food and explaining traditions — effectively becoming educators themselves.

“I love seeing students getting so animated to become teachers,” Rosenberg said. “They are informing students and opening their world.”

Among them was Lynette Gordon, an eighth-grader with roots in Japan and Trinidad, who said the fair offered a chance to share a familiar part of her daily life. Representing Japan alongside her family, she handed out homemade rice balls to passing students — turning her everyday lunch into something to share with her peers.

“I definitely like to just teach people about different cultures so that people can be more open to them and  less likely to be scared by others,” Gordon shared.

For Ariana Beckford, a 16-year-old junior representing her Jamaican background, the event became a rare opportunity to express the full complexity of her identity.

“As a mixed girl, I am Jamaican and Ecuadorian,” Beckford explained. “It’s kind of a way of showing people we are very diverse as people, and not everyone is the same, so I  love sharing that.”

Beckford, who also participated in last year’s event, said the atmosphere felt both educational and communal, with students moving between tables and engaging with cultures beyond their own.

“My favorite part is probably the community, because you get to meet new people,” she added. “It’s a mini way of traveling.”

For her, the experience was also personal. Preparing to represent Jamaica pushed her to delve into a side of her heritage she had not explored deeply before.

“This is a way for me to learn about my own culture,” she said.

Prado said that kind of self-discovery was exactly the point, creating a shared space where students can both educate others and better understand themselves.

“We always want to show them this is a safe place, a place of refuge,” she said, emphasizing the broader role schools play in fostering inclusion.  “A place where you can be who you are without being judged or without being afraid.”

Inside RKA’s gymnasium, that message unfolded table by table — through flavors, dances and traditions from around the globe.