Singing for home
When Pranjal Prithvi (12) left his home country of Bangladesh in July 2023, he made an oath that he would spread his culture everywhere he went. When the multicultural assembly came around, he knew the song, “Tomar Ghore Bose.”
“I just want to represent my country to the world,” Prithvi said. “The people of Bangladesh went through a lot of hardships recently because of the government and student protests. I wanted to reflect this in my singing.”
Prithvi found these protests fascinating. Seeing a younger population stand up to a corrupt government was inspiring, and he carried that feeling with him going into his performance.
“It doesn’t matter if it’s good or bad, I just want to perform, ” Prithvi said. “I don’t care about others, if people will judge me, I can take their opinions.”
A folk song he heard from his father perfectly described the pride he feels as a Bangladeshi.
“This song depicts how we live in Bangladesh,” Prithvi said. “The way we fought for our language and our country.”
While auditioning, Prithvi didn’t feel nervous at all. He was proud to share the story of his way of life. But on the day of the assembly, anxiety overcame him about performing on stage for the first time in front of a large audience, but he pushed through. His love for his homeland grew beyond the need to impress his peers.
When he finished the show, he initially thought people weren’t going to understand his language, but the audience’s reaction surprised him.
“I was amused that people actually shouted,” Prithvi said. “And how they seemed amazed about my performance afterward.”
The perfect poem
While growing up in America, paraprofessional Somer Ramadan would visit her family in Palestine every summer. When she visited, she immersed herself in culture and felt her identity strengthen. Now, those visits inspire her to stand up for justice in her country. In August 2024, after spending many months grieving the bombings in the Gaza Strip, she felt compelled to write a poem about Palestine’s beauty.
“Everything that happened and still is happening hurts my heart and soul,” Ramadan said. “I was grieving because of what was happening and felt hopeless not [being] able to do anything for my people.”
When Ramadan first met Dalia AbedAlqadi (10) and Razan Mady (10) at an Islamic school, AbedAlqadi admitted to her that she didn’t like to tell people she was Palestinian. This lit a fire in Ramadan. She was determined to help her embrace her heritage
“She was like, ‘I’m afraid to say I’m Palestinian,’” Ramadan said. “And I said, ‘Don’t be afraid. I don’t care what anybody says. Stand up for who you are and what you believe in.’”
When AbedAlqadi and Mady told Ramadan that they wanted to perform something for the multicultural assembly, she had the perfect poem already written for them.
“It was so beautiful,” AbedAlqadi said. “It really talked about what’s happening there and it’s really significant to me, so just being able to share that out there to everyone feels really good.”
For AbedAlqadi, the auditions were nerve-wracking.
“Our plan was to memorize the poem, so we don’t have to read it off a phone,” AbedAlqadi said. “While I was there, I kind of forgot a line, but I quickly remembered at the last second.”
The social pressure also added to her anxiety over the audition and recital.
“I was also nervous about how people would react to me reading a poem like that since they could be against it,” AbedAlqadi said.
On the day of the performance, they felt tense going on stage. As the show began and the lights dimmed, the anxiety lingered. But when they walked onto the stage, they found comfort in the atmosphere. Looking out onto the crowd of students and teachers, something shifted as the energy of the moment built up. AbedAlqadi’s nervousness faded away when she noticed the darkness behind the stage lights over the audience.
After reciting the poem, the audience’s reaction was an unexpected surprise.
“I didn’t expect there to be that much applause,” AbedAlqadi said. “I expected [it] to be a lot lower.”
