Food for thought

Different cultures, different Thanksgiving

KE-ALANI SARMIENTO Reporter @KeAlaniNews

Turkey is the famous dish cooked every year by families across the United States for Thanksgiving, but what other foods do cultures bring on this holiday?

Mashed potatoes, stuffing, ham, macaroni and cheese and pumpkin pie are sure to delight your stomach. Students share their culture on a plate when loved ones come together.

“My mom travels from Mexico every year and cooks us these amazing tamales,” said Daniel Ortiz, student at Pierce College. “Everything’s from scratch, you can’t find them anywhere here. Last year my dad made cactus stir fry. We eat pie, but we also have Mexican hot chocolate and eat ‘Metcha.’ It’s a dessert.”

Not all families celebrate with the same traditional American dishes.

“We don’t really have American food,” said Athenna Mapile. “My whole family is from the Philippines. We cook adobo, pinakbet, pancit, rice and lumpia.

My all-time favorite is menudo and I think the longest to make is lechon. It’s a roasted pig.”

Parts of Middle Eastern heritage have sauces and wraps that bring new flavor to old-time favorites.

“We eat a lot of food like turkey and mashed potatoes,” Helen Habtay said. “We eat a lot of Eritrean food and we put Tsebhi on everything. It’s a sauce.”

“My mom makes Warag da wale(dolma), also known as mensef or kanifa,” Reem Haddad said. “Rice and meat are wrapped inside grape leaves. Palestinians put bread on the bottom.”

Gianna Renelle comes from Italian descent and said she has a family with many traditions.

“My family is huge on lasagna and wine,” Renelle said. “I help with making fettuccini alfredo since it’s easy. My Aunt makes the best gnocchi. She comes from the east coast where most of my family lives. It’s never a family party if everyone isn’t drunk off of wine.”

Some people eat Panda Express, but you’ve never had Chinese food like with David Chang’s family.

“My family doesn’t eat turkey,” Chang said. “We eat Szechuan chicken and duck. We have chow mein and fried rice all the time so it’s normal for me. As for desserts, we have sticky rice and apple pie.”

“Sometimes we have Obgusht,” Kacey Bina said. “It’s a Persian dish. It’s a soup made with garbanzo bean meatballs, broth and for Thanksgiving we put cinnamon. There’s dried lemon and chicken quarters.”

“We do homemade sweet potato pies with marshmallows on top and candied yams,” Kerry Williams said. “We make gumbo with crab, chicken, shrimp, sausage and celery. You take the celery, flour and seasoning to make the rue.”

Thanksgiving is celebrated in so many ways with many cultures that have their own special dishes. With families and loved ones across different heritages, traditions cross over to America.

Adding to Pierce’s deaf culture

Deaf professor joins the American Sign Language/Interpreting program

When it came to teaching, all signs pointed to yes for Stephanie Durand and her energy can be felt in the classroom.

“You know in high school, in English class they ask you to write a journal, right? They always said, ‘what do you want to be when you grow up?’ And I always wrote teacher, always,” Durand said while signing.

This semester Durand became a full-time American Sign Language

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Book and Toy Drive

Now through Dec. 3, the Child Care Resource Center is holding a Holiday Book and Toy Drive in the Child Development classrooms and the ASO lounge. The drive will accept new books and toys for children ages 0-13 and will be distributed locally. Funds can be raised on your own by creating a page at ccrcca.org and a tax deductible donation can be made. For more information contact the Child Development Club: cdclubpiercecollege@gmail. com.

Winter Play Production

The Pierce College Theater department will be showing a preview of “The Royal Family,” a comedy that follows a family of stars as their dramatic lives unfold. The play opens Dec. 4 at 8 p.m. on the Pierce Performing Arts Mainstage in the Performing Arts Building on the Art Hill.

The play is set to continue through Dec. 13 with shows at different times. More information and tickets can be found online at http:// www.brownpapertickets. com.

Persian Club event

The Pierce College Persian club is hosting the PersianAmerican networking development night in the Great Hall from 6 to 8 p.m. This event will feature live musical performances and poetry readings.

MLA Workshop

[ASL] professor at Pierce. She joined the ASL/Interpreter Education Program as an adjunct professor in the Fall of 2014. Durand who was born deaf, brings something unique to the classroom.

[See SIGNS, pg. 6]

The Pierce College Library will host a Student Success workshop on Wednesday, Nov 18 from 1 to 2 p.m. in library classroom 5212.

The workshop will assist students in learning shortcuts with research, citation style and gudielines, in-text and works cited.