Students and families walking in front of Kyle Field Saturday encountered cultural displays along with ethnic foods and entertainment. Twenty-four organizations, most of them culturally based, participated in the 14th annual Whoopstock Unity Festival.
From empanadas and non-alcoholic pi-a coladas, to face painting and bingo, the organizations used different means to teach about themselves.
During the festival, members of the Indonesian Student Association played the “Aggie War Hymn” on traditional instruments.
Geraldine Sumolang, a sophomore civil engineering major from Java, said they played the angklung – an instrument made of bamboo and played by shaking it. It took members about one month to learn to play the hymn, which they also played at International Week in early March, Sumolang said.
Antonia Yoyada, a junior electrical engineering major from Sumatra, said playing the “Aggie War Hymn” provided an inviting way for people to learn about Indonesian culture.
“People might be interested with more traditional stuff,” she said. “But the ‘Aggie War Hymn’ everyone knows.”
The festival began in 1993 in response to a proposed Ku Klux Klan march in College Station, said Meagan Pitcher, the director of Whoopstock. The student body decided to hold the alternative event rather than protest, she said.
“It was basically just to show that A&M was united and that College Station was not a welcoming environment for the KKK rally,” Pitcher said.
The plan was successful. Pitcher said about 400 people attended the first Whoopstock Unity Festival and that about three people attended the KKK march.
“Usually when they (the KKK) hold that kind of stuff, they want to get attention,” she said. “But they didn’t have an audience.”
Whoopstock – previously located on Simpson Drill Field – has grown since it moved to the Aggie Fan Zone, Pitcher said.
“It’s basically just showing that A&M is made up of a lot of types of people and we’re a united and diversified campus,” Pitcher said.
In addition to booths, Whoopstock, Jr. provided children with activities from a football toss and hockey shoot, to henna tattoos and name translations.
Roxanne Longoria, president of the Hispanic President’s Council, which represents the 18 Hispanic organizations on campus, said the festival allows A&M to showcase its diversity on a weekend when many prospective students and Aggie families are present.
“(We’re) reaching out to more students and spreading diversity because it’s Parents’ Weekend,” she said. “So you’re pretty much showing the campus that there is diversity, and that there are a lot of minority organizations that people can get involved in.”