Arlington was named the most ethnically diverse city in north Texas, second to Houston as the most diverse city in all of Texas, reported by Arlington Urban and the Dallas Morning News.

According to the Dallas Morning News, in 2019 the population of Arlington was 61.5% white, 29.2% Hispanic/Latino, 22.5% black, and 6.9% Asian. As of September 29, according to Principal Reny Lizardo, the population of Bowie High School is 38.25% black, 37.56% Hispanic/Latino, 15.16% Asian, 7.28% white, 1.42% 2 or more races, 0.16% Pacific Islander/Native Haiwaiian, and 0.12% American Indian/Alaska Native. 

Students say they think Bowie is diverse to a point, but could be more diverse, with two of the three students answering the question with both yes and no.

“Yes but also no,” said Bowie junior Amaya Nicholson. “We have a lot of different cultures but there aren’t a lot of white people here. If we’re talking about people of color, there’s a lot of people of color, so it’s diverse in that way.”

Some students say Bowie is lacking in showing off different cultures and heritages of their students. Junior student Nick Nguyen had this to say regarding Asian students.

“They (the school) don’t show enough about Asians, they already show enough about other ethnicities but not Asians,” Nguyen said. “They have the ASA (Asian Student Association) but that’s all they have. They should host more Asian events like Lunar New Year.”

Students felt that there’s large gaps in the population of Bowie and there isn’t an equal amount of each ethnicity in the school.

“The difference is that there’s a lot more white people in the area but they’re not attending Bowie,” said junior Evile Rubio. “It’s weird because you’d expect there to be more white people at Bowie. I guess the majority of the Hispanic/Black/Asian percentage go to Bowie.” 

Two of the three students said there was discrimination towards certain ethnicities.

“When I’m in class I hear people saying racist things,” said Nicholson. “I wouldn’t say people are bullied because of it, but people still do make comments.” 

Nicholson had this to say about the prevention of racism that seemed to be commonplace at the school, and if there was anything that could be done.

“Probably,” Nicholson said. “But teachers can’t tell students to stop, but teaching histories of each culture could make it stop.”