A Holi celebration was hosted at South Campus at Mountain House on March 4. The event, a collaboration with Mountain House United, included festive food and music, as well as the traditional throwing of gulal to celebrate the spring festival of colors.
“It’s an Indian festival, it normally comes during the onset of spring. Every year we have a different date, so it’s not an exact date, because we follow the lunar year. All of our festivals are all based on the lunar year, so you’ll have different dates. This is just a general festival, which the whole of India celebrates,” said Naina Juturu, co-founder of Mountain House United.
Dr. Pablo Ortega, Dean of the Mountain House campus, said the event brought the campus and communities together. South Campus at Mountain House opened in 2009. Mountain House officially became the newest city in San Joaquin County in 2024.
“Our community has a lot of East Asian, Indian and Pakistani population. And so what we try to do here at the Mountain House campus is we try to bring the community to feel vested about our campus. So we sought the advice of a program called Mountain House United, which is a nonprofit here,”said Dr. Pablo Ortega, Dean of the Mountain House campus.
The South Campus population is considerably smaller compared to the main campus, which creates a greater sense of connection to the bigger community.
“For our students, you know, our campus is real small, but we’re trying to make them feel welcome, so they know that we’re here for them. That we’re gonna take care of them,” said Ortega.
Despite the small size of the south campus there were attendees. Some professors brought their classes out to view the event and allowed the students to partake in the festivities. The event took place in the South Campus’ parking lot. Students who registered beforehand were given white t-shirts to wear when the multi-colored powder was thrown.
“I saw a poster advertising the holi event, and I have an Indian friend, and I was asking about it. And she was telling me about it and it seemed pretty cool. So we both came,” said attendee Matteo Kovach.
The event celebrates the welcoming of the spring season in Indian culture.
“India is divided into several states, and each one has a different language and different cultures as well. So even Indians don’t know much about other cultures in their own country. But this is not confined to a certain state or tradition. It’s throughout India and it welcomes spring,” said Juturu.
