Paying respects to culture while celebrating a major milestone can significantly make an impact, for these many students wear a cultural stole to preserve the traditions and inspire future generations. Though only a few universities let the students wear a custom graduation stole of their choice, many believe in promoting diversity. They have diversity centers that support and guide students from diverse backgrounds while creating a network and support groups. This creates social and emotional awareness, increases empathy, and boosts confidence. This blog discusses different types of cultural stoles, customization ideas, and some amazing facts.
How Many Types of Cultural Stoles Are There?
Let’s briefly explore the different kinds of stoles that are available.
The native American stoles are made by hand-weaving fabric in traditional colors red, gold, white, and black. Students wear this to showcase their Native pride. The meaning of each color is as follows. The red depicts wounds, blood, sunset, and war. In contrast, white demonstrates snow, winter, and death. Yellow indicates the Sun, day, and dawn. Colors like blue and green show the sky, clouds, summer, and rain, and showcase the richness of their heritage.
Another culturally based stoles is the Kente stoles. These depict the heritage of the African American students during the graduation ceremonies. The authentic stoles are hand-woven in Ghana which is located in West Africa. The design features strips in green, yellow, and red, over a long black sash. There are other designs too. These stoles symbolize the struggles faced by them and their knowledge. Many students like to personalize the stoles with their year of graduation and or by using the expression ‘Black Grads Matter’.
Mexican American and Latina graduates wear their traditional Serape stoles for the graduation ceremony. The other term is ‘Rebozos’. Serapes were developed in the northeastern side of Mexico. Earlier a symbol status of the wealthiest Indians and Mestizos, the people who wore the stoles were highly respected. These stoles are usually long and rectangular and are woven. They are a symbol of rich heritage, resilience, and cultural pride. Mostly they are comprised of wool material and consist of a diamond pattern. They use bright colors in the stoles and have multiple designs. You will find flowers, leaves, and other motifs in a few of the designs depicting perseverance, beauty, and vigor.
Amazing Ideas To Customize Your Cultural Graduation Stoles
To start with, you can wear your stoles just like that without personalizing. However, customization can help your stole stand out. Some easy ideas include adding the year of graduation, or Class of … onto one side & using the college’s or university’s logo on the other. A text or a quote in your native language will make the stole uniquely yours. If you have been a part of an organization or a club, like a book club, sports club, religious club, art club, music club, or more, you can either write them or use symbols like a book and a pen, or a football, or a treble clef to showcase that. Going overboard with the design is easy sometimes, incorporate one or two ideas to create a unique & minimal stole for yourself.
The Cultural Stoles Are Significant & Powerful
As we saw for many students the stoles are important to showcase their cultural identity, background, and places of influence. The students also advocate and celebrate their diversity through college and university events. This experience is important for all the students as it exposes them to different perspectives encouraging critical thinking and empathy. The early exposure to different cultures prepares the students for globalization. Also, you don’t get to wear a graduation stole every day, so to celebrate that you should not miss out on the opportunity. We hope you found this article insightful.
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