BGHS celebrates cultures of student body
Published 5:00 am Sunday, December 14, 2025
The Bowling Green High School soccer captain steps to the Performing Arts Center stage in slacks and a Fugees sweater as a vibrant Tanzalian kanga drapes his shoulders. The 18-year-old accepts the mic from Principal Kyle McGraw, and a chuckle carries through an audience of schoolmates who laugh and cheer for Byaombe Matendo, who almost a decade ago began a new life in Bowling Green after a childhood in Tanzania.
“I want to thank you for being part of this destiny,” he said — some slides on Tanzania projected behind him.
“This” — he continued, pointing behind him — “is where I was born.”
Dec. 9 was a multicultural day of learning at BGHS, as students from 25 countries shared cultural parts of their upbringing with their school community: Foreign exchange junior student Silvia Enea presented on stage about her life in Veneto, Italy. The auxiliary gym became a mini-International Festival, as students had prepared everything from Burmese tea leaf salad and Salvadoran pupusas to Micronesyan papayas and Tanzanian plantains. At the school Arena, schoolmates at booths shared about prominent cultural holidays — Christmas, U.S Independence Day, Mexican Independence Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Chinese New Year’s and so forth.
McGraw said there are 32 countries BGHS’s students hail from — and that and diversity is absolutely one of their strengths.
“We learn a lot more from people who are not like us than people who are,” McGraw said.
BGHS senior Finley Hondorp described growing up with friends from other countries as really nice, and a learning opportunity.
“Wherever I may end up — in college, or in the future — I think it’s really important to have experienced a sense of diversity and being able to interact with people of all different cultures,” she said.
For many immigrant students, the day was an effort to share who they are and where they’re from with schoolmates, and an opportunity to bolster others’ understanding of their cultures — which they said is important.
BGHS Junior Siltrise Jonathan said that being Micronesian means constantly fielding questions about which island she’s from. For her, the event was a chance to fill a gap in understanding over fried rice, shrimp eggrolls, chicken and papaya.
Junior David Lin, who moved here from Malaysia in 2013, said that for him, being a kid in a new country meant not solely learning customs and traditions, but also living through racism and bullying for being Asian.
“Racism towards Asians is very normalized nowadays. I really don’t like that: all those Indian jokes, all the Chinese jokes,” he said.
For him, the event was an opportunity: He and others of a new club he cofounded to bolster community among Asians helped organize and prepare food at the Burmese and South Korean tables.
“I think this way they will understand our culture better, and they won’t judge us as hard,” he said.
Enea, the foreign exchange who spoke at the PAC after Matendo, presented on public transit, infrastructure, regional fares and all else Italy.
“I think that there’s always something to learn from everybody,” she said of the chance to learn about others’ cultures.
It’s something Enea described as appreciating about the school — and part of the reason she’s in the U.S., she said.
“I just want to say, be kind to everybody,” she added. “Because you never know what’s going on in somebody’s life, or what they have experienced in their life.”
For Matendo, a Purple since 4th grade, sharing culture means imparting the love he knew from Tanzania with his community here. In Bowling Green, he said, friends have accepted and supported him as he has learnt the language and culture.
A warm smile and exceptional kindness belies his upbringing in the refugee camp Nyarugusu. Many resources plentiful in the U.S., such as tap water, weren’t available there; in Matendo’s youth, he and others would line up at a well to gather water for their families.
Soccer coach Craig Widener said Matendo is without a doubt the most gracious student he’s known, who views every day as a blessing. Stockton Beasley Brown, a soccer teammate, said that as Matendo’s parents were using their car for work, Beasley Brown and Matendo shared rides to and from practice over the past five years — times Matendo was smiling and full of life despite difficulties accessing support due to language and transportation barriers. In that time, Beasley Brown said, he’s gained perspective on his own life.
“I just really learned from him that in the face of all adversity, it’s really important to find the light in the moment,” Beasley Brown said.
Tanzanian culture, Matendo said, is about being around people who improve you — as they did for him.
“To be part of Bowling Green, is to change the environment for the good of others,” he said.
Best of Best Winners
