Multicultural Conference

I attended a Multicultural Conference with my creative writing class this semester. We chose our workshops some time before the actual conference, and I was incredibly excited to be going. My first workshop was called "Nothing About This Is Binary", which was going to be a seminar on transgender rights and community, as well as the way that people were mistreated. Actually getting to the conference was an adventure and a half, really. It seemed like we were one of the last people to actually get there, maybe because we were all standing outside, busy being distracted by the architecture of the building we were entering and the college campus in itself. As we entered the conference, I was actually surprised to see so many older adults. I figured most of the groups would be like ours was, several students and one teacher. The beginning of the conference was kind of dull, but still held the air of excitement and change and radical ideas that I had hoped for. I remember one of the first introductory speakers saying "Raise awareness, raise funds, raise hell.", and the crowd erupting into cheers. That's stayed with me, as I feel like it really encompassed the heart of the conference. Rose and I both went to our first seminar, which I had been looking forward to days before the event. We were the only people there who looked like they were under twenty, but the person leading the seminar looked young. He was a transgender man that our teacher had actually gone to high school with when they were young. Our seminar was incredibly interesting and focused on the strife and difficulties that transgender people people face every day. In the beginning the teacher said "This isn't trans 101. We're actually talking about more in depth prejudices." That's really when I knew the seminar was going to be awesome. It was all about awareness and how different minority groups intersect. After the seminar, Rose and I hung back and talked to the person who was giving the workshop and chatted with him a little bit. Afterwards, we went down to have lunch with the rest of the our class. Halfway through the lunch we began another presentation for the whole conference. The man was an actor, who used creative outlets and written language to bring across a point on people who are LBGT, disabled, bullied, or suffering from mental illness. A lot of the program revolved around a central theme: depression. In all honesty, I started to cry, and a lot of my classmates did too. The things he said really stuck with me. After the program was over I felt a little bit shaky, because hearing such a powerful speech on things that affect me deeply in my everyday life really struck me at my core. I went to my second workshop by myself then, which was about how emotions and social awareness messages can be portrayed through body movements and theatrical arts. It wasn't really what I expected, but I enjoyed myself greatly. We did a lot of acting practices, and did a few messages ourselves. There were a lot more kids in that workshop and we all bonded in a weird, teenager like way. All in all, the conference was an incredible experience and I would recommend going to whoever would be able to make it there.