As hundreds of UT students piled into the Student Activity Center ballroom for the annual Try Culture event, they were greeted by student organizations, music and free food from different cultures. 

Try Culture festival is a collaboration between the Asian-American, African American and Mexican-American culture committees within University of Texas Campus Events + Entertainment. Students attending the festival received free food provided by each culture committee if they visited the student organizations tabling for each committee. 

Each tabling organization offered a variety of activities and games for students to take part in such as pinball offered by the Taiwanese American Students Association, coloring activities from the Association of Black Psychologists and Loteria, a game similar to bingo, offered by the Hispanic Students Association.  

Alexis Gonzales, event coordinator and African-American Culture committee representative said the annual event allows students to immerse themselves in different cultures. 

“My freshman year, I remember the African-American Culture committee had Ethiopian food, and I tried a lot of new things just from coming to an event,” communications senior Gonzales said. “So that’s what I hope the most for people attending — for them to have fun but also to remember what they got to experience with all the cultures that they may not have been able to experience anywhere else.” 

Try Culture also included different performances such as the lion dance by Texas Dragon/Lion Dance team and a mix of merengue and cumbia dance performances by Texas Latin Dance. Jasmine Wong, event coordinator and representative of the Asian-American Culture committee, said this event is a testament to what happens when people of different backgrounds come together. 

“I guess that’s what we get to tell people, that we can work together happily, no matter where we are from, what our background is and we can bring something awesome together,” kinesiology senior Wong said. 

Izar Trevino, membership officer of the Mexican-American culture committee, said it’s important to acknowledge the amount of work that went into putting on Try Culture. 

“It takes a lot to coordinate an event like this,” psychology sophomore Trevino said. “We had 1,000 people interested on the Facebook page, and it takes a lot of work to bring it together. Everyone here is a volunteer — no one gets paid. So these are people who are really into UT Events+Entertainment who want to bring their perspective to campus.”