A history of our Global Festival and FIND

 By Ginanne Brownell P ’36 ’36

With the smell of bubbling curries bursting forth from warming pots, twinkling candles lining the hallway and marigold garlands colorfully draped across the room and from the ceiling, the Commons looked anything but that during November’s Diwali celebration. Organized by the India Club, more than 140 people from across the ASL community came together to celebrate the festival of light. A number of performers—which included traditional Indian dancers as well as ASL student musicians singing and playing guitar—created an even more festive atmosphere as people milled around, tasting dahls, curries and Indian sweets. A prayer to begin the evening helped set the tone, and the two-hour ticketed event was an immersive and entertaining affair. 

The India Club’s celebration was just one of numerous events put on each school year under the umbrella of FIND (Families Integration Diversity), a parent volunteer organization that has existed in a few guises for almost three decades. Interestingly, the founding of FIND, which in the past has been called both the Country Liaison Committee and the International Community Committee (ICC), grew out of the International Fair, which has since been renamed the Global Festival and will take place this year in March. It all started back in the early 1990s, when a number of parents involved in the Parent Teacher Organization (now known as the PCA), decided to hold an international fair to celebrate the school’s burgeoning diversity. “At that time, there were only about six of us who were doing everything for the festival,” chuckled Sandhya Jois P ’07 ’11, a parent of alumni who is also a middle school aide. Her friend Malette Dahl P ’03 ’07, whose children also attended ASL, vividly remembers that they would recruit other international families to be involved in the festival, “when we would see them on playgrounds, picking up their children from school or in the classrooms.”  
 

Sandhya said, “I have seen the Indian group grow from literally two families, then three and then 10 to the large number the group is today.” She added that during those early festivals, many countries were grouped together by region though she admits, “in a way it was tricky but that is how we did it.” Those handful of volunteers would decorate the gym—Malette remembers kites that were brought in from Bali one year—as well as cook and prepare all the food. “It was fun because it was such great bonding, our kids would play together while we cooked,” she said. Wendy Robinson, who is ASL’s director of publications and copywriting, has been at the school for more than 30 years. “It was a really joyous thing and I remember going to these fairs and being absolutely bowled over,” she said. “And what is lovely is that it was very similar to what we have now: tables on the edge of the gym, you would go around and get nibbles of food and talk with people. So, while it’s developed and become bigger and better, it certainly has always strived to bring people together.”  

To give an idea of how the school’s landscape has changed over the decades, during the 1971-72 school year, 98% of ASL’s population was American. A decade later, 88% of the School was North American and by the early 1990s when the International Festival started, 70% were North American and more than 40 countries were represented in the school population. (Interestingly, nowadays 70% of ASL students who hold American passports also hold a second passport and there are now 75 countries that are represented in the School). “The ASL community changed dramatically in the 1980s,” Raul Biancardi ’80, an ASL graduate who also was an ASL guidance counselor from 1989 to 1993 and whose family were originally from Argentina, wrote in an email. “When I was a student at ASL in the 1970s, the vast majority of the student body had moved to London from the US. The parents (mostly fathers at that time) were working in the oil business, some in the auto business, and some were diplomats working at the US embassy.” While the US oil and automobile companies in the mid-1980s pared down their expat workforces, the financial services industry started to bolster their international workforce in London, so that meant that ASL’s student population started to become much more international.  
 

At some point, said Malette, it was felt that “it wasn’t just enough to have an international festival,” which during those days was being held annually. (The first auction took place in 1995 and it was only in 2000 when it was decided that the auction and the festival should each take place biannually on alternate years). So, the Country Liaison Committee was created so that families from countries across the globe could come together to celebrate not only their cultures with each other but also to share that with the wider school community. FIND now not only helps facilitate a number of country groups—from Malaysia to Mexico and Spain to Syria—but also activity and interest groups that include photography, cuisine, hiking and art appreciation. “What I understand is that if you are American, you come to the American School, this feels like your home, you do not see yourself as being international,” said Tina Madhvani P ’28, chair of FIND, whose family is Asian-Ugandan. “Whereas if you are African coming from Africa or coming from China or from Korea, you might be looking for people that might speak the same language as you or celebrate the same festivals.”  


For many British and American families, the term “international” in ICC did not feel like the right fit for how they identified themselves in an American school setting in London. “The point of ICC was being missed, which is really integration into the fabric of the School, to all these different clubs, groups and events,” said Tina. “So we were thinking what is ICC good at? And what it’s good at is creating a community and the integration part was so important.” So, in 2019, ICC changed its name to FIND. Many families, of course, straddle more than one culture, including hyphenated identities like Serbian-American or Peruvian-Swiss, so the feeling that renaming the group focused on the integration and diversity part was very important. “ASL is producing internationally aware graduates,” wrote Raul, adding that, “in my view ASL has a big role to play in the creation of enlightened young adults.” FIND would certainly agree, and helping highlight the school’s diversity has and will continue to create a strong community.