A mariachi singer tapped her stark white boot to the music as she sang a traditional song begging her lover to return.
Wearing multi-colored ribbons in her hair and a white dress from the Yucatan Peninsula, her alto voice confidently soared over the mariachi accompaniment.
The performances were part of the College of Engineering's annual International Day in Engineering event on Wednesday. Local high school students and residents put on various cultural performances in honor of International Week, which starts Saturday.
The theme of the event this year was "I need you, you need me" and was an opportunity to show engineering students that MSU cares about who they are as people, said Maggie Blair-Ramsey, coordinator of the Engineering Study Abroad Program.
"We put a face on diversity," she said. "You can talk diversity, but to actually see people displaying it and have other people of all cultures applaud your performance - that says more than words."
About 50 people gathered in the lobby of the Engineering Building for the event. Students often stopped to take in the performances by Eastern High School in Lansing and Everett High School, as well as other area residents before heading to their next class.
Performances included Russian and Mexican singing, Chinese classical dancing and an African American spiritual dancer.
Twenty-year-old Monica Ortiz, a local Mexican American mariachi singer and member of a local Mexican folk dance group, said participating in cultural performances is important to her as a Mexican American, because others often become entirely Americanized.
"It's important to me to keep my culture alive," she said.
Also present at the event were local art suppliers Shelton Allen and Monta Williams of Bullock Enterprise, 813 W. Saginaw St. in Lansing. The two displayed various handcrafted carvings from Ghana that are imported and exported to expose Americans to a different style of art, Williams said.
He said being in contact with the art pieces make him feel more in touch with his origins.
"For me, being a descendent of Africa, it's like a renewal of culture," he said. "It's a coming back to the culture. The only history I had began with slavery."
Williams said while visiting Africa to collect art, he now sees his identity differently, not specifically as American or African American.
"When you see people through commerce, you see we really are just one big people," he said.
"It's always good to come together in the name of diversity to unite thought."
