Baldwin-Whitehall community comes together over multicultural food

A traditional dish of fried noodles from Myanmar sat on the table next to mac n’ cheese.

Inside the Baldwin High School cafeteria, kids and adults alike from across the globe — including the U.S., Nepal, Afghanistan and Tanzania — gathered to share a meal.

The night of dancing, singing, good food and conversation united Baldwin-Whitehall’s newest community members with longtime residents.

This is the third straight year that the Whitehall Public Library has organized the “We’re All Neighbors Multicultural Potluck Dinner.” For the Feb. 24 event, the area’s large population of refugees and immigrants that are new to the U.S. — along with long-term community members — were asked to bring a meal that showcases their culture.

“We are trying to be focused on building bridges between our new community members and our long-term residents,” Whitehall Public Library director Paula Kelly said. “I hope that they leave here feeling proud of the community and diversity that’s represented here.”

Food is a great way to unite everyone, Kelly said.

“If you’re willing to be a little adventurous trying something new, you might just fall in love with the food,” she said.

Each table had a bag of icebreaker questions to help encourage conversation between residents of all cultures.

This is the second year the Baldwin-Whitehall School District has hosted the event.

The district provided Italian cuisine, including pasta and freshly baked bread along with what food service director Joyce Weber describes as “basic American chocolate chip cookies.”

The night is not only great to unite the community that comes from all different backgrounds, but it also gives district leaders insight into the foods their large population of immigrant and refugee students from across the globe are used to eating.

“When our students tell us that they’d like to see more foods spicy, we get a chance to try it and experience that,” Weber said. “Food is one of the basic (necessities). It is one of the things where, regardless of your ethnic background, we can sit down and share a meal.”

Bishnu Timsina, 43, of Baldwin Borough, brought traditional Nepali dumplings, called “Momos,” that were a hit among the crowd.

Timsina, a native of Bhutan who spent 18 years in a refugee camp in Nepal before moving to the U.S. in 2009, saw the importance of the night.

“Food can bring people together,” she said. “I really wanted to introduce our food to other community members in the neighborhood so that we feel connected, we feel interrelated.”

Tek Rimal of Whitehall filled his plate with foods from all different countries. There wasn’t one bad thing on the menu, he said.

“Everything is so good,” said Rimal, who came to the U.S. from Nepal in 2011.

Ba Blu Moo, 14, an eighth-grader at J.E. Harrison Middle School, munched on a cookie filled with icing. For her, it was too sweet.

Instead, Ba Blu, who was born in a refugee camp in Thailand before moving to the U.S. in 2008, preferred the chow mein.

Chadella Niyubuntu, 11, a sixth-grader at Harrison who moved to the U.S. from Tanzania in 2008, said her favorite was the Nepali dumplings.

Many of the families have been in the U.S. for several years. The kids are becoming “more Americanized, which is not bad,” said Susie Backscheider, youth mentoring coordinator with South Hills Interfaith Movement, who brought more than two dozen kids to the event. “It’s important for them to recognize that food from their country is important, too.”

Sharika Neopaney, 13, an eighth-grader at Harrison who moved to the U.S. in 2013 from Nepal, said food not only showcases one’s culture, but it lets people know who you are.

Megh Kadarya, 14, a freshman at Baldwin High School who moved to the U.S. from Nepal in 2011, also saw the importance of the event. “We all have cultures to celebrate and we can share our cultures,” he said.

Megh and his friends, Sandip Rai and Sha Tamang, both 16-year-old sophomores who came to the U.S. from Nepal in 2013 and 2014 respectively, said their favorite foods came from their homeland.

“It’s the best,” Sandip explained. Although, they decided to try foods from other countries, too, to get the experience.