The Cupertino Courier

Residents put heads together on diversity

By Pam Marino

More than 100 community leaders and residents brainstormed ideas last week--ranging from a storytelling festival to a neighborhood congress--all with the hope of improving relations among the city's diverse cultures.

The meeting was sponsored by the Cupertino Citizens Cross Cultural Consortium, or 5Cs, as part of an ongoing effort that began nearly two years ago to ease racial tension in the city.

The 5Cs steering committee began meeting monthly after a two-day workshop in March to plan future community gatherings. Last week's meeting brought back some of the original participants in the workshop, as well as others who were in focus groups organized by the Public Dialogue Consortium, a nonprofit academic group that started working in Cupertino in early 1996.

At last week's meeting, community members broke up into small groups around four main topics, "High Tech," "Education," "Neighborhoods," and "People to People." Some residents joined the "Other" category of small groups to discuss a wide range of issues.

The purpose of the small groups was to develop action plans for possible adoption.

The "People to People" group, which focused on communication between community groups and through the media, suggested the storytelling festival as a way to share stories from a variety of cultures. The group envisioned lots of multicultural activities and food at Memorial Park to culminate a week of international activities at Cupertino schools.

One "Neighborhoods" group suggested a neighborhood congress that could bring representatives from all areas of Cupertino together on a regular basis.

There were several education groups that focused on how to bring understanding of cultures to children and educate parents at the same time. Many agreed that more multicultural curricula are needed in the schools.

One of the groups discussing miscellaneous issues urged the audience to contact media outlets that portray Asians in a negative light.

Residents interviewed after the workship said the two-hour meeting was a valuable experience.

"What I came away with is a much clearer understanding of multicultural relationships in the city," said Ron Wong, a parent from Stevens Creek Elementary School. "This is the first venue I've been in that discusses these issues across the board."

Rob Langhorne, from Good Samaritan Church, said he thought the discussions proved that "we're not all that different. This was a great first step. I'm looking forward to continuing with it."

The 5Cs steering committee will be discussing the results of last week's session at its next meeting at 7 p.m. on Oct. 22 at City Hall.

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