Sri Lankan exhibit at International Bazaar

Sri Lankan exhibit at International Bazaar

In 1983, Western Illinois University's International Bazaar featured country-specific booths that displayed local culture and customs. The image shows a large number of individuals visiting the Sri Lankan booth, and tasting Sri Lankan food, evidence of a vibrant Sri Lankan campus presence at the time. Sri Lanka was a former British colony that achieved independence in 1948, then known as Ceylon. The South Asian island country became the republic of Sri Lanka in 1972. In 1983 a civil war erupted in Sri Lanka between the Buddhist Sinhalese-speaking majority and Hindu Tamil-speaking minority rebels (the "Tamil Tigers") that lasted a quarter-century. That conflict to a decline in Sri Lankan student population at WIU.