By Benedict Moran

Sebastien Belhomme, a 17-year-old Haitian immigrant, stood with two friends in the Newtown High School library waiting for his next class to begin.

“I used to think in stereotypes,” he said, “but since I’ve been here I stopped thinking like that.”  Pointing to another student an arm’s length away, Belhomme continued, “Like, I used to just think that he was Chinese.”

“I am Chinese!” exclaimed Jonathan Ng, a 16-year-old of Chinese descent, yet born and raised in South America.

“I thought you said you were Venezuelan,” replied Belhomme.

The short and quick response – “I am Venezuelan, as well” – surprised no one within listening distance.

After all, this school is situated in Elmhurst, the most multicultural zip code in the United States, according to the Department of City Planning.  Newtown has more than 3000 students who represent over 100 countries and speak 60 different languages.

“Newtown is a typical United Nations,” explained Mary Wang, an associate principal at the school.  Facing a wall map of the world in her office, she described how this internationalization  helps her wards adapt to an increasingly globalized world.

“Students need to be competent and caring, not just good in math and science,” she said.   “We’re not just teaching them subject classes, we’re teaching them how to be good citizens.  We’re teaching life skills.”

That was certainly the case for Maria Almendrala. The  shy 18-year-old senior, who moved to Elmhurst two years ago from the Philippines, said she was impressed  by the variation of cultures she encountered in the hallways.

“The first day I was here, my teacher was Indian, my classmates were Puerto Rican, another was Dominican, one was Tibetan,” she said.  “I was like, whoa – check out these people.”

Students who transferred from less diverse school districts welcomed the cornucopia, as well.

Dixie Dominguez, a 16-year-old Cuban Peruvian, moved from Jamaica, Queens, where she said most of her Latino friends grew up segregated from other ethnic groups.  But things were different at Newtown.

“In my classes, I would see an African American and an Asian person talking as friends, and that was new to me,” she said.

Students say that such extreme diversity makes no one feel like a minority.   Sharing a lingua franca helps, too.  Those who are still learning English are encouraged to perfect it so that they share a common language.

Estaphefanny Nunez, who arrived from the Dominican Republic in 2006 without  a word of English, said she now speaks it fluently.

“The first few weeks were terrible, because I didn’t have friends,” she recalled about her early days  at Newtown.  “I heard lots of people speaking Spanish, but I didn’t want to concentrate on my own language.  I wanted to meet other people.  So I started making friends with Asians, Indians, all of them.”

To be sure, Newtown has had its share of tensions. Students say some classmates belong to gangs and occasional fights break out.
Francine Torres paused from writing an article for the school newspaper about tolerance to say that the teachers and people in the wider community could do more to encourage mutual understanding.

“There are so many cultures, but no one is understanding them,“ said the 16-year-old of Spanish and Puerto Rican parents, gesturing passionately.

But many other students believe that the variety of cultures actually helped discourage ethnic friction.

“I don’t think any group in the school has a necessarily harder time than any other, because the school is just so diverse,” said Dagmara Cintron, a half-Polish, half-Spanish 16-year-old.  “Everyone has their own amount of difficulty fitting in.”

To smooth out any kinks, the administration employs a few tools to encourage multicultural harmony.  These include an annual multicultural talent show featuring dances and musical numbers of different countries and a club named the “Tolerance Task Group”, that sells T-shirts with the words “Unity in Diversity.”

Almendrala, from the Philippines, though, thinks that simply working together in class is sufficient. “Living with each other every day, just being in the same space, we learn how to figure out how to work with each other,” she said.

Studying at Newtown felt right, she added, as she wanted to learn about other cultures.  “Being here is like throwing a turtle into the pond,” she said. “I just love it. These kids are so different!”