Volunteers representing countries and religions from around the world met Thursday evening at Hatfield Hall with bursts of colors, cultural food and festive music for the 19th annual Interfaith/Intercultural Day. I was among them.
While making my way towards Hatfield Hall, I was greeted with colorfully dressed Mexican dancers, all dolled up. There were also Aztec dancers with shiny body ornaments and huge feather headpieces.
When I stepped into Hatfield Hall, I bumped into councilman Donald Holley, a Christian, joyfully talking to Reza Nekumanesh, a Muslim from the Islamic Cultural Center of Fresno.
The world we live in right now is filled with racial and religious tension — the ISIS reign of terror continues in Syria, employees at the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo were gunned down in France, and Boko Haram’s massacres took the lives of about 2,000 innocents last year. When I open social media, hateful and racist comments crowd my screen, mostly targeting Muslims...