(Editor’s note: Electronic photos are available of the following three students from Pam Jahnke at jahnkep@msu.edu.)
EAST LANSING, Mich. — Three Michigan State University students will receive Excellence in Diversity Awards for illustrating diversity through their musical and visual artwork.
MSU junior Sierra López and graduate students Victor Marquez and Dohi Moon each will receive a $500 cash prize for their entries in the “Students Making a Difference Through Artistic Expression” contest.
The entries will be on display during the awards program at 4 p.m. Wednesday, March 14, at the Clara Bell Smith Center adjacent to the Duffy Daugherty Building on the southeast corner of Shaw Lane and Chestnut Street.
Ranging from a symbolic self-portrait to an electronic composition set to the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, the entries were as diverse as the students who created them.
The award recipients are:
Sierra López, Ann Arbor
Sierra López’s self-portrait is a collage of symbolic images representing the type of person she is today. Standing in front of glowing red, white, blue and green mountains, her left arm is an eagle’s wing and her right arm is covered with thorns – the stem to the rose that replaces her hand.
The portrait represents her culture and her positive and negative experiences in life, she said.
“It’s a commentary about who I am as a person, and a lot of my beliefs can be found in it as well,” said the family community services major. López originally created the piece for one of her classes at MSU.
Growing up in a multiracial family, López said, made it difficult to be accepted for herself. She said people struggle to think about race, gender and sexual orientation in terms of “black and white.” People like her fall into the “gray area,” she added.
“Kids’ parents wouldn’t let them come over to my house because my dad was Mexican,” López said. “It was hard not being accepted but it benefited me in the end, because it made me stronger both in character and identity.”
At MSU, López works at the University Child Development Center. She hopes to one day work in Mexico, a place she calls home.
López said her goal in life is to “better the identity crisis issue, confidence level and oppressed situation of Latino and Native American youth.”
Victor Marquez, Maracaibo, Venezuela
Victor Marquez believes that diversity is not only something learned in classrooms. To him, it is a way of life.
“We’re all products of diversity as human beings,” he said. “Diversity is everywhere all the time. You’re always surrounded by different people, different ways of thinking. That’s diversity.”
Marquez’s entry is an expression of the similarities between two traditional music styles, Brazilian choro and American ragtime, in a jazzy and upbeat composition, and how bringing two culturally diverse styles of music has influenced musical genres such as jazz.
“As an international student you are always taught about different cultures getting together; it was an opportunity to show that through my work, my music,” he said. “It is interesting how similar the two musical styles are in some structural elements, so I wanted to show that through a composition that combines both.”
Born in Venezuela, he studied both classical and jazz guitar, and composition at the University Institute of Musical Studies in Caracas. He is enrolled in his first year at MSU as a master’s student in music composition.
At MSU, Marquez is experiencing a new way of learning from what he is accustomed to in Venezuela. “It’s not better or worse,” he said. “It’s just different, and sometimes you have to adapt.”
He plans to use the prize money toward his education. After he finishes his master’s, Marquez wants to get his doctoral degree and return to Venezuela to teach and compose music.
Dohi Moon, Seoul, South Korea
Dohi Moon has been drawn to music ever since she was five years old when her mother taught herself to play piano.
Moon would listen intently, hanging on every note while she watched her mom play, and then imitate what she had heard. Noticing her interest, her mother began teaching Moon how to play the piano.
Her electronic composition entry, titled “Interpretation I,” is a musical collage with Johann Sebastian Bach’s music serving as a backdrop.
“I chose Bach’s music for my entry because it was the first music that touched me,” Moon said. “It touched me even when I was young and didn’t know the difference between good music and bad music.”
After graduating from Seoul National University in South Korea, she moved to the United States to study music composition at MSU.
“When I came to the United States, I started to notice that I’m different,” said Moon, now in the second year of her doctoral program. This inspired her to study her background, and now she is focused on the cultural aspect of her music.
Transitioning to her new home, she juggled the challenges of changing her major and facing language and cultural barriers simultaneously.
“In Korea you can’t raise your hand in class,” Moon said. “Most of the time it was lecture style, but here it is a discussion. I prefer the style here because in Korea, it’s like the professor is giving food to me and I’m eating it, but here they teach you how to find the food.”
For more on the awards program, visit the Web at http://www.diversity.msu.edu.
###
Michigan State University has been advancing knowledge and transforming lives through innovative teaching, research and outreach for more than 150 years. MSU is known internationally as a major public university with global reach and extraordinary impact. Its 16 degree-granting colleges attract scholars worldwide who are interested in combining education with practical problem solving.