Pangea celebration highlights a diversity of cultures

MOORHEAD, Minn. (KVRR) – At the Hjemkomst Center the people of Fargo-Moorhead got together to experience and learn about the cultures that make up this city of immigrants.

“Everybody is just really mingling together. This is what Pangea is all about.”

Pangea: Cultivate our Cultures has been bringing together the Fargo-Moorhead community to share their traditions for 30 years.

“To see these people coming to like it so much, and being able to create a club, and being able to cultivate it and share it with people and show something new and exciting here in Fargo-Moorhead. I mean honestly what more can I ask for. I really love it.”

For many participating, it’s a chance to share their culture with their neighbors, and foster understanding and community.

“Even me, growing up here, every time I go to a meeting or meet with some community member, and they ask where I’m originally from, and I say Kurdistan, and they have no clue where it’s at. And then that’s where I have to explain myself, North of Iraq, and you know, explain the geography, explain our history, and that’s how they get to know the Kurds and Kurdistan.”

It’s also an important way for new immigrants to feel welcome in their communities, connecting over common experience.

“For us as a minority community, we just need the community to realize that we are all together in this.”

And it’s a way to celebrate their heritage and their home in a land of immigrants.

“No matter where you are in the world, you can always feel pride in your culture and your heritage and you should never feel ashamed of it.”

If you want to get involved, contact Emily Kulzer at the Hjemkomst Center at emily.kulzer@hcsmuseum.org.