Overheard on Cultural Day

Friday we had a special cultural day celebration at school. Oct. 12 is Columbus Day/ Native Americans Day/ Day of the Race in the Americas and Foundation Day in Korea. So we spent a half day celebrating various cultures. Here are some of the comments heard:
"Whoo-hoo!" (upon seeing their own country's flag)
"Jesus Loves Me" (in 6 languages)
"I had no idea..." (followed by a number of statements)

In my class, students looked at groups of unidentified pictures from a variety of American sub-cultures.
"OHMYGOSH! IT'S TERRORISTS!" (upon seeing muslims in Dearborn, MI)
"that looks so gross"/ "that looks delicious" (a picture of 'soul food' from Detroit)
"wait, I know this place! It's the TajMajal!" (it was a picture of a mosque in Dearborn)
"This has got to be disney world. No one really lives like this." (it was a picture of Frankenmuth, MI)
"Ms. Kelly, where's that place kinda by Denmark?" "Scandenavia?" "Yep, that's it! This is the scandenavian flag" (It was a polish flag, on a parade in Chicago)
"is that sarah palin?" (it was an eskimo family in Alaska)
"these are fortune cookies" "did you even read this, dummy? it says 'moon cakes'" "but there's a pieces of paper coming out of them!" (it was a fortune cookie)
"this must be africa. everyone's black" (it was detroit, MI)
"this is japan - that's where they wear kimonos" "no way! they have fortune cookies, definitely china" "wait - you're asian, what do you think?" (it was chinatown, san francisco)

After a half day of fun activities, we had a potluck lunch with every family bringing something to share. I was getting homemade hummus and pita bread triangles ready when the kids circled around.
"what is that?" "is it cheese"
"no, it's hummus"
"what?"
"hummus"
"what?"
"hummus. it's ground chickpeas. it's like a dip"
"is it spicy?"
"nope. they feed it to babies."
"who does?"
"it's arabic. Remember how I said that a lot of Arabs live near my house in MI? They eat this a lot, and so all of us like to eat it, too."
"where did you find it in Mexico?"
"my husband made it from scratch."
"what's that?"
"it's pita bread. in Mexico they call it pan arabe or arabic bread. it's like the bread Jesus ate."
"really?"
"yep. try a little! I bet you'll like it!"
"wow! this is really good!"

Everyone ate hummus and pita bread and absolutely loved it. Even Mr. Derek, who said, "I really liked your hammas." I wanted to point out that I did not bring a terrorist group from Lebanon, but I thought he'd miss the joke.

Overall, a really great day. :)