A large crowd of students, faculty, and community members gathered at Brigham Young University–Hawaii for the annual Culture Night, where 23 student-led clubs from around the world took the stage to celebrate their cultures through music, dance, and storytelling.
Held this year as a one-night event, Culture Night is one of the university’s most anticipated traditions, giving students the opportunity to share their heritage while bringing the campus community together.
This year, students representing Fiji, Tuvalu, and Vietnam shared what preparing and performing for Culture Night has meant to them.
Fiji
Mosese Veilesiyaki, a senior from Fiji studying hospitality and tourism management, and currently president of the Fiji Club, said that the preparation for this year’s Culture Night was a rollercoaster of emotions. “When our presidency started this semester, every one of us was new. None of us had experience running a club before, and there was one moment when everything seemed to fall apart,” he shared. “So I knelt down and prayed. I asked Heavenly Father for guidance because I knew I couldn’t rely only on my own understanding.”
Veilesiyaki said that, as he prayed, he felt a prompting from the Spirit to reach out to others and ask for help. That experience taught him something important that day—leadership isn’t about carrying the club yourself; it’s about encouraging everyone to bear that weight altogether.
“My role as president is not to stand above everyone else, but to bring people together so we can move forward as one.”
That’s the beauty of Culture Night; it brings people together, often people from completely different backgrounds. “One thing that amazed me was the diversity in our club. I asked everyone where they were from, and we discovered that there are more than 50 different nationalities represented,” he said. “That diversity teaches us how to communicate, understand different cultures, and support one another. It helps us develop a mindset of cultural respect and adaptability.”
Representing his culture on stage brings about a feeling of fulfillment, said Veilesiyaki. “I feel like I’m representing my parents, my village, my country, and the people who raised me,” he shared. “In a way, I’m representing my family, my nation, and also Heavenly Father. Being on that stage feels like honoring all of them.”
Tuvalu
Students from Tuvalu will take the stage at this year’s Culture Night, marking an important moment for the island nation on campus. “This is actually the first time the Tuvalu Club has participated in Culture Night here at BYU–Hawaii, so it has been a really wonderful experience,” shared Logotau Avanitele, a senior studying information technology from Tuvalu serving as the president of the Tuvalu Club.
When asked about the challenges this type of responsibility brings about, Avanitele emphasized personal growth. He explained that this experience helped him develop better communication, patience, and working with people who are completely different from him. Through all that work and preparation, Avanitele said that it has helped him become a better leader.
Going on that stage for Tuvalu felt like a dream come true for Avanitele. “Tuvalu is a very small country with a population of about 11,000 people, and it’s not very well known,” said Avanitele. “Starting this club and preparing for Culture Night has brought together people who have small connections to Tuvalu—some through family ties—and it has given them the opportunity to learn more about their culture.”
“When you’re far away from home, sharing your culture helps you feel closer to home. Culture Night gives students the chance to show the world where they’re from and the love and respect they have for their culture,” he said. “Tuvalu may not be well known to many people, but Culture Night is an opportunity for others to learn about ours.”
Avanitele said that only two of them in the club actually grew up in Tuvalu, and the others are well-acquainted friends who joined in support of the club. He said that this is the reason why BYU–Hawaii is so united— “because it is a church school; the love we have for the Savior helps us also show love for other people and their cultures. Students support each other and are willing to learn about cultures they may have never heard of before.”
Vietnam
For Vietnam Club President Minh, a sophomore studying business management, human resources, and finance, Culture Night is both a leadership experience and an opportunity to share Vietnamese culture with the BYU–Hawaii community. "Serving in this role has taught me many lessons about leadership, especially in organizing and bringing everything together for Culture Night,” Minh said.
Planning the performance required coordinating many different elements. “Preparing for the performance helped me learn how to see the big picture—thinking about the dance movements, the formations, and the costumes before everything comes together,” he said. “It also taught me to ask for help and to be more patient throughout the process.”
When designing the performance, Minh aimed to balance tradition with something new for the audience. “I wanted to bring something traditional from Vietnam, but also introduce something new that people may not know about,” he said. “Many people know Vietnam’s national flag, but they may not know about other traditional symbols used during festivals.”
For Minh, Culture Night is also about sharing culture and creating lasting memories.
“One of the biggest reasons we participate is to create good memories here at BYU–Hawaii,” Minh said. “Personally, I want to share the traditional values of my country with others through our performance.”
A Night to Remember
As one of the most anticipated nights of the year, students were thrilled to attend and capture moments throughout the evening. “Culture Night was beautiful to capture through my camera because every performance showed a small piece of a country’s culture and heart,” said Douglas Ferreira, a junior from Brazil majoring in political science. “As a photographer, I focus on the little details and emotions, and it was amazing to see the joy, pride, and effort each person put into sharing their culture.”
For the student leaders and performers, Culture Night was more than a performance—it was a chance to represent home, build friendships, and share traditions with the BYU–Hawaii community. From Fiji to Tuvalu to Vietnam, each club brought its own story to the stage, reminding the audience that the university’s strength lies in the cultures its students bring with them. As the night concluded, cheers from the crowd reflected the same message shared throughout the evening: Culture Night is not only a celebration of heritage, but also a celebration of unity.
