New Haven Independent

The two kindergartners (pictured) carried the flag of their native Trinidad and Tobago at a 90-minute celebration at Davis Street Magnet School Friday.

It was the annual year-end “International Day.” The event has a special resonance at Davis, a K-5 school whose students speak 17 different languages.

Each class at Davis spends a year studying a country. The students learn from classmates and parents who come from the country under study. They read up and prepare projects. They make masks. They learn songs to sign or play on violin. With the parents, they cook up native dishes.

Friday was time to celebrate all that learning, and show it off.

When students came to school Friday dressed in the styles of foreign lands, and of Puerto Rico, many of their parents didn’t need to shop at international boutiques. They simply walked into their closets.

Joshua Okoli’s family, for instance. They come from Nigeria.

And Pablo Sanchez’s. They’re from Mexico.

Chloe Spence’s family hails from South Korea, Kevin Perez-Vasquez’s from Puerto Rico.

Students served as “mini-ambassadors” from countries around the globe at Friday’s annual event. They carried national flags to the stage, then shared information they’d learned. Raquan Lopes and Chyna Overby hoisted the banner of Cape Verde.

Damian Henderson and Bianca James told the hundreds assembled about how they read Chinese folk tales, looked up their birthdays on the Chinese zodiac, and researched Chinese geography and sports. “I bet you didn’t know,” Damian reported, “that the most popular Chinese sport is ping-pong.” After their presentation onstage, a Davis violin sextet performed “Love Song of Kangding.”

Afterwards, everyone returned to class and shared freshly cooked native dishes. Dian Adji (at center in photo) and the students in her daughter Emily’s class served snapper fried rice, green tea, and edamame. The previous two years Adji cooked specialties of Indonesia; that’s where she moved here from 10 years ago. This year the class covered Japan. Adji lives in West Haven. A teacher there suggested she switch Emily to Davis Magnet, because of Emily’s budding musical talent. Emily started learning violin at Davis in 1st grade. (Playing instruments is popular at the school.) Then Principal Lola Nathan sent home a notice about slots at Neighborhood Music School; Adji followed up, and Emily got financial aid. This year Emily won a Yale School of Music-sponsored public schools competition. And on Friday, as the school celebrated the world inside its doors, Emily played a Japanese piece called “Sakura” on her violin, solo, onstage.