Cultural identities and interaction were two of the key topics at Iowa State’s sixth annual Conference on Race and Ethnicity.

Friday’s conference, which drew more than 300 people, is one of several on-campus initiatives aimed at enhancing diversity and fostering a better multicultural environment at Iowa State.

Participating ISU students and faculty members had the opportunity to hear keynote speakers, take part in sessions targeted at specific multicultural issues and learn about themselves and others in their community by sharing and interacting with one another.

“The future of Iowa State is in your hands,” said Japannah Kellogg, program coordinator for the dean of students office and conference co-chairman, to those in attendance.

Lee Mun Wah, a nationally known lecturer, filmmaker and poet, outlined several areas of prejudice and racism in everyday life that affect diversity.

“We need to accept and embrace differences, as well as see other peoples’ differences as positive. In the United States, most people have a negative connotation to differences,” Wah said. “Acceptance and tolerance of others’ ethnicity and multiculturalism is not the same as embracing diversity.”

Wah also lead several group exercises encouraging participants to interact with one another and learn about each other’s ethnicity.

“Promoting the sharing of your cultural identity is so important to bringing about change within the community and university,” he said.

The biggest obstacle standing in the way of furthering diversity, Wah said, is the misconception that large-scale reform is needed in American society.

He said the most frustrating problem facing ethnic minorities in this country is one that everyone can control.

“It’s the subtle things that kill us,” Wah said. “The way people look at my Chinese son in a restaurant or in the airport … it’s the subtle things that make people of ethnicity feel bad and tears away at them.”

It was in these lessons and messages that allowed multicultural students who attended to walk away with a better understanding of what diversity is, as well as a better understanding of those in their community, conference organizers said. White students who attended benefited from the chance to talk with multicultural students and being exposed to a wide range of perspectives, Kellogg said.

Although it was mainly those who attended who benefited from the conference, the issues addressed at the conference are pertinent for everyone at Iowa State, said Debra Sanborn, program coordinator for the dean of students’ office and conference co-chairwoman.

“These are important issues that need to be addressed at any predominately white campus,” Sanborn said.

Students must be encouraged to interact with one another and discuss these issues, she said.

Sanborn and others said the conference was successful in its goal of creating student leaders on campus to advocate for greater acceptance and understanding of race and ethnicity at Iowa State, Kellogg said.

“I fight against racism to make a better world for you,” Wah said. “Ask yourself, ‘What do I do to end racism on a daily basis?’ When we all begin to live diversity, we won’t need conferences and videos proclaiming our diversity … we’ll all feel it.”