By Rahul Tamta Entertainment Writer Photo by Rahul Tamta

Students joined more than a million students across the country in a movement to break down social and racial barriers by participating in the 13th annual Mix It Up at Lunch Day this past Tuesday, sponsored by DMMV. The event was launched by the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Teaching Tolerance project in 2002, with the premise being built around the idea of encouraging diversity within different social groups. Through several surveys, the program identified the cafeteria as the school environment where social divisions are the most clearly drawn. To help instigate interaction between students who wouldn’t normally socialize with one another, a select amount of students were invited to the small forum room during their lunch period to participate in the event. Most who attended the event were positive about it. “It’s important to interact with different kinds of people so you can see different perspectives on different topics,” junior Imiyah Weatherspoon said. Staff and student members of DMMV worked together to plan interactive small group discussions to spur conversation between students. This year’s theme was centered around movies. After introducing themselves to one another, students were asked a variety of questions all connected to cinema. The likes of favorite movies, actors, genres, soundtracks, etc. were all covered. Throughout the course of the lunch, conversation between students gradually grew more avid, as they grew more comfortable amongst one another. Many students walked away feeling much more fulfilled than they originally thought they would. “I loved it! It was a lot of fun and I like how they based the conversations on certain themes. I love talking about movies, so this was especially fun for me. It was great learning about the kinds of movies that other people like,” senior Armond Anderson said. Organizers of the event hope to even further improve the popularity of Mix It Up at Lunch Day for future years. “Going forward, I’d like to hopefully get volunteers that are willing to break the mold and meet new people. We have had to invite students, but if people are willing to volunteer, that’d be awesome to see,” senior DMMV member Harrison Kranz said.