Here we have: Chinese New Year A Glorious Gay Pride Week (This one I went to) A Glorious Gay Pride Parade (Went to this too) Italian Heritage Day (formerly Columbus Day) Polish Heritage Day A Irish Heritage celebration on St. Patty's A small Middle Eastern celebration type thing that is mostly the dance troupes in the area African Heritage week Enough Greek, Polish, Russian, Italian and German food festivals than you can shake a stick at. Our stadium for the Pirates has Ethnic days for the main ethnic groups of the area. The colleges have a lot of Ethnic festivals. I'd have too look and see what they have. I know the slavic department at PITT has a Russian and Eastern European Ethnic festival and show films and such
I wonder if a Jazz heritage celebration counts here too?
Yeah, sounds like SF. :-) Mmmm, we have a Greek festival here.
I deliberately left off Eurocentric ethnic festivals, though, because in the discussion I referred to above St. Paddy's Day was being compared to Chinese New Year, and in my mind, in a predominantly white country, those can be two VERY different things.
Yeah, I kind of got the impression that Canada and the States view and celebrate St. Paddy's Day sort of the same way - it's not as rarefied as, say, Day of Svetitskhoveli or something.
I would like to vote 'yes' for the first question in the poll.
And because Chicago is one of the most segregated cities in... ever, I will say that we have several different permutations/parades/celebrations of the above done in different neighborhoods/schools/streets over the course of forever.
Also, the city is bordering on "HELL TO THE FUCKING NO" on holding the southside St. Patrick's day parade next year because stupid douchebags use it as an excuse to get drunk and be doucheier than normal. So, in a city run by Mayor Richard M. Daley, we're probably canceling Ireland day in one of the most heavily still Irish neighborhoods. But we'll still dye the river green. It's kinda fetching.
And because Chicago is one of the most segregated cities in... ever, I will say that we have several different permutations/parades/celebrations of the above done in different neighborhoods/schools/streets over the course of forever.
That's interesting - I'd vaguely heard that about Chicago, but it's really that segregated? Like, no big central Cinco de Mayo party? Awwww. Tell me more.
I find the prospect of St. Paddy's Day being CANCELED in CHICAGO fucking HILARIOUS.
ALSO! AJ! I THOUGHT OF YOU WHEN I WATCHED CLIPS OF THE BOOKCART CHAMPIONSHIPS ON NPR!
Erm, dude. Chicago managed to send Martin Luthor King Jr. back home. It's gotten better (somewhat) but while it sounds kind of lame and a bit handwavey, Chicago is very, very much a city of neighborhoods. There's some movement between and the Loop is very much kind of communal open space and there are lots of cultural celebrations downtown, but most of the BEST parties are neighborhood based.
And even drunk Chicagoans can get sick of drunk stupid people. It takes a LOT, but we get there. And heeeee!!
ETA: Also, you'd probably appreciate this, but I went to one of the Dances last night in Highlandville (my home town). I'd forgotten how much I adored going. I've known two people in the band The Foot-Notes for my entire life (Beth was The Mother's birth coach when I was born, so I mean this LITERALLY), and had been taught how to schottische, waltz, and polka a long, long, looooooooong time ago. I actually got to drag The Mother out on the floor and waltz with her, and got to see all these young, young people (including one '
( ... )
My high school civics teacher was OBSESSED with the Daley dynasty. We had to read all about the history of Chicago during the Civil Rights movement, so believe me, I KNOW. We had to read, like, everything Mike Royko wrote about the Daleys one semester.
It is nice to connect, isn't it? Are you 100% Scandinavian? Mutts don't always get that luxury, see.
Just as a note - this post is HUGE in my flist, and the picture-loading made my internet flail at me. I don't suppose you'd mind lj-cutting some of the pics?
...this is not to say that I didn't READ the post, because I did, but there was a LOT of scrolling. And I do have to say that I don't know most of those pics and vids...but I'm Aussie, not American. Chinese New Year and Saint Patrick's Day...hmm. Canberra and Queanbeyan do fail a bit on the bigness of multicultural festivals, but in general St Pat's day really isn't seen as a big deal over here, as far as I can recall. Chinese New Year is more so, and celebrated and reported on the news and everyone is welcome to come and watch, but I wouldn't say it was nearly as well integrated into things as it seems to be in San Fransciso. Maybe that's different in a city with an actual Chinatown, but...well, I'm a Canberra girl, and my city didn't exist until the 1920s.
Whoops, sorry - I meant to cut the last batch of pictures. Fixed! Sorry about the scrolling.
I think San Francisco is more of a FUCK YES DIVERSITY AND WE'RE GONNA PUNCH YOU IN THE FACE WITH IT BECAUSE THAT'S HOW WE ROLL, BITCHES. And anyone who doesn't understand that is kindly shown the door. We have our share of idiocy (homophobia, transphobia, racism), of course, but the most frequent kind of bigotry I see overtly expressed? Is against people from Los Angeles. (Remember, we have that long-running feud with L.A. Sadly, L.A. doesn't know about it.)
I've recently seen footage of the Chinese New Year's parade/celebration in Liverpool. Poor Liverpool. It's cute and all, but dude, it cannot compete with us.
St. Paddy's day here is purely marketed for commercial purposes. It lost all meaning decades ago as a celebration of St. Patrick. But you know what IS awesome? All the bagel shops here make GREEN BAGELS for St. Patrick's! Wow, it's like my heritage all wrapped up in one piece of breadstuff! Bagel! Green!
Green bagels. That's not just in San Francisco, mind you. What, you people don't occasionally verdantize your schmears?
(Keep in mind that there's an astonishingly high rate of historical marriage in the States between Jews and Irish Catholics. If there wasn't, I wouldn't exist! I have links somewhere talking about those demographics - when Jews started marrying out in large numbers in the States, for a while there they most often married Irish Catholics and Italian Catholics rather than WASPs. Which makes perfect cultural sense to me for a variety of reasons.)
I can't really say much about what we celebrate here in Philly, as I have always lived outside of the actual city. I do know the little town I lived in did celebrate St. Patrick's Day and had a parade...
I'm also sure Philly does something for Chinese New Year, but its probably small.
I have seen many Native American dances. My father(who is half Mohawk Indian) used to take me to Pow Wows whenever they were nearby and I always loved watching the dancers in their elaborate costumes. I'm proud to say I'm part native American, but I often wish I looked it...The Irish and Scottish parts of my family diluted it too much....I'm whiter than white bread.
I spent a lot of summers in Arizona as a kid, so I got to go to a lot of Navajo, Pascua Yacqui, etc. events. One of the last things I got to do with my dad before he passed away was to wander into a pow wow being held in the Bay Area. This was classic - we came from seeing a Bulgarian vocal choir perform at Zellerbach on the UC Berkeley campus, walked outside, and there was a HUGE pow wow (huge for the Bay Area) going on in the next building, which was a stadium.
So we went in, sat, and soaked it all up for a couple of hours, watching the dancing and talking to people. It was beautiful serendipity. Beautiful culture from one side of the world to the other all in one night.
I would like to go to more pow wows...Since I haven't been to one since I got out of elementry school(I think...) so I couldn't really apreciate it fully.
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Chinese New Year
A Glorious Gay Pride Week (This one I went to)
A Glorious Gay Pride Parade (Went to this too)
Italian Heritage Day (formerly Columbus Day)
Polish Heritage Day
A Irish Heritage celebration on St. Patty's
A small Middle Eastern celebration type thing that is mostly the dance troupes in the area
African Heritage week
Enough Greek, Polish, Russian, Italian and German food festivals than you can shake a stick at.
Our stadium for the Pirates has Ethnic days for the main ethnic groups of the area.
The colleges have a lot of Ethnic festivals. I'd have too look and see what they have. I know the slavic department at PITT has a Russian and Eastern European Ethnic festival and show films and such
I wonder if a Jazz heritage celebration counts here too?
Reply
I deliberately left off Eurocentric ethnic festivals, though, because in the discussion I referred to above St. Paddy's Day was being compared to Chinese New Year, and in my mind, in a predominantly white country, those can be two VERY different things.
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And because Chicago is one of the most segregated cities in... ever, I will say that we have several different permutations/parades/celebrations of the above done in different neighborhoods/schools/streets over the course of forever.
Also, the city is bordering on "HELL TO THE FUCKING NO" on holding the southside St. Patrick's day parade next year because stupid douchebags use it as an excuse to get drunk and be doucheier than normal. So, in a city run by Mayor Richard M. Daley, we're probably canceling Ireland day in one of the most heavily still Irish neighborhoods. But we'll still dye the river green. It's kinda fetching.
Reply
That's interesting - I'd vaguely heard that about Chicago, but it's really that segregated? Like, no big central Cinco de Mayo party? Awwww. Tell me more.
I find the prospect of St. Paddy's Day being CANCELED in CHICAGO fucking HILARIOUS.
ALSO! AJ! I THOUGHT OF YOU WHEN I WATCHED CLIPS OF THE BOOKCART CHAMPIONSHIPS ON NPR!
Reply
And even drunk Chicagoans can get sick of drunk stupid people. It takes a LOT, but we get there. And heeeee!!
ETA: Also, you'd probably appreciate this, but I went to one of the Dances last night in Highlandville (my home town). I'd forgotten how much I adored going. I've known two people in the band The Foot-Notes for my entire life (Beth was The Mother's birth coach when I was born, so I mean this LITERALLY), and had been taught how to schottische, waltz, and polka a long, long, looooooooong time ago. I actually got to drag The Mother out on the floor and waltz with her, and got to see all these young, young people (including one ' ( ... )
Reply
It is nice to connect, isn't it? Are you 100% Scandinavian? Mutts don't always get that luxury, see.
Reply
...this is not to say that I didn't READ the post, because I did, but there was a LOT of scrolling. And I do have to say that I don't know most of those pics and vids...but I'm Aussie, not American. Chinese New Year and Saint Patrick's Day...hmm. Canberra and Queanbeyan do fail a bit on the bigness of multicultural festivals, but in general St Pat's day really isn't seen as a big deal over here, as far as I can recall. Chinese New Year is more so, and celebrated and reported on the news and everyone is welcome to come and watch, but I wouldn't say it was nearly as well integrated into things as it seems to be in San Fransciso. Maybe that's different in a city with an actual Chinatown, but...well, I'm a Canberra girl, and my city didn't exist until the 1920s.
Reply
I think San Francisco is more of a FUCK YES DIVERSITY AND WE'RE GONNA PUNCH YOU IN THE FACE WITH IT BECAUSE THAT'S HOW WE ROLL, BITCHES. And anyone who doesn't understand that is kindly shown the door. We have our share of idiocy (homophobia, transphobia, racism), of course, but the most frequent kind of bigotry I see overtly expressed? Is against people from Los Angeles. (Remember, we have that long-running feud with L.A. Sadly, L.A. doesn't know about it.)
I've recently seen footage of the Chinese New Year's parade/celebration in Liverpool. Poor Liverpool. It's cute and all, but dude, it cannot compete with us.
St. Paddy's day here is purely marketed for commercial purposes. It lost all meaning decades ago as a celebration of St. Patrick. But you know what IS awesome? All the bagel shops here make GREEN BAGELS for St. Patrick's! Wow, it's like my heritage all wrapped up in one piece of breadstuff! Bagel! Green!
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*nodnods* That is the impression I get of San Francisco, yes. It sounds terribly awesome. (...*snerk* I'm sorry, that...entertains me)
Well, hey, at least they are trying.
...Green. Bagels. *staaaaaares*
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(Keep in mind that there's an astonishingly high rate of historical marriage in the States between Jews and Irish Catholics. If there wasn't, I wouldn't exist! I have links somewhere talking about those demographics - when Jews started marrying out in large numbers in the States, for a while there they most often married Irish Catholics and Italian Catholics rather than WASPs. Which makes perfect cultural sense to me for a variety of reasons.)
Reply
I'm also sure Philly does something for Chinese New Year, but its probably small.
I have seen many Native American dances. My father(who is half Mohawk Indian) used to take me to Pow Wows whenever they were nearby and I always loved watching the dancers in their elaborate costumes. I'm proud to say I'm part native American, but I often wish I looked it...The Irish and Scottish parts of my family diluted it too much....I'm whiter than white bread.
*sigh*
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So we went in, sat, and soaked it all up for a couple of hours, watching the dancing and talking to people. It was beautiful serendipity. Beautiful culture from one side of the world to the other all in one night.
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