NewPark Mall Embraces A Multicultural, Multilingual Community
Earlier this year, NewPark Mall opened a brand new in-house cultural center, the NewPark Mall Cultural Corner. In a multicultural community, the center allows NewPark Mall to reach out and find common ground amongst all it shoppers.
“If there is a universal language, that language is spoken through the arts,” said Kelly Gardner, general manager at NewPark Mall. “The addition of our brand-new cultural arts center inside the mall is the perfect way to bring our community together, bridging the gap between cultures, customs and languages.”
The Cultural Corner provides exhibit space for the work of local artisans, including painters, sculptors, photographers and digital artists. It’s currently holding a Polynesian Art Exhibit, Polynesian Dreams, spotlighting art from the Polynesia South Pacific Islands of Tahiti and the Northern Islands of Hawaii.
To help bridge the gaps of language even further, the center canvassed its retailers for multi-lingual employees that would be willing to converse with shoppers with whom they share a language. As it turns out, NewPark Mall employees share 18 different languages including Cantonese, Chinese, English, Farsi, Hindi, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Punjabi, Sign Language, Spanish, Samoan, Tagalog, Taiwanese, Talian, Turkish, Urdu and Vietnamese.
“The diversity we find in art is the same kind of diversity we find in people,” Gardner explained. “The addition of our new Cultural Corner arts center at NewPark Mall and the fact that we have 21 retailers who are multi-lingual will serve to welcome shoppers from all walks of life, helping them remain proud of their heritage and hold onto their customs and traditions even as they assimilate into the community we all share as our common home.”
