When Should A Festival Be Called A Fundraiser?

            When I hear International Festival, or festival in general I immediately associate it with hippies. I may be a bit biased thanks to South Park, but I have never seen what purpose is accomplished by making drum circles or “hippy jam fests” to promote peace. So much to my surprise, I was very impressed with the turnout and success of Chico State’s International Festival.

            On April 26^th, 2008, the International Festival was held for the first time in the NEW downtown city Plaza! This was definitely an upgrade from the normal downtown city plaza activities, as unfortunately since the upgrades, we HAVE NOT upgraded the caliber of people who congregate downtown, only the caliber of facilities we offer the misplaced unemployed of Chico’s community.

            The downtown plaza was decorated by multiple booths representing the many associations of Chico State. There were many multicultural booths represented throughout the festival but many booths that were much less recognized. A familiar booth to many students was MECHA, where they offered information on upcoming classes related to Chicano and Latino studies.

            One of the newer booths, which I have personally seen more representation on campus of, was the Pacific Islanders Connection or PIC, in which people of Hawaiian, Pacific Islander, etc descent tried to spread awareness of their culture. They had multiple offerings to educate on their culture, as well as Hawaiian snow cones to earn money to support their club!

            I was very proud to be at this event as a Chico State student, and to take pride in the amount of diversity my campus possessed. I was however, a little perturbed by the fact that I felt multicultural appreciation only meant something to the booth representatives in relation to their own cause, and not the cause as a whole. They were trying to sell food to make money for their clubs which is understandable, but anyone can yell and proposition for food, but I was there to LEARN about the clubs.

            It wasn’t at the international festival, but on campus when I was given the opportunity to speak with Josue Guzman. Josue was running for Multi-cultural coordinator, and he really inspired me with his passion for intertwining multicultural activities on campus. He expressed his curiosity in expanding the definition of “multicultural” to be inclusive to ALL activities that even remotely involve culture of ANY kind. I was HAPPY to vote for Josue in the AS elections, and I look forward to seeing him apply his passion for multi cultural awareness throughout our campus.

            I had a great time at the International Festival, but in my opinion, although I am glad they moved it to the downtown plaza, they need to make it less of a fundraiser hippie jam fest, and more of a “cultural experience.” Some people don’t want to be downtown on a Saturday, and it is obvious in their attitudes…you want someone down there who is passionate about their culture who is anxious to educate anyone willing to listen about it. Above all, I would say the festival was a success, however, if I was running it, I would have had much higher standards, and I believe it would have been much smoother. Anyone can tell a bunch of clubs to bring out a bunch of canopies and pretend to have outreaching booths, however this was not the case. To me it was just another day, walking through the free speech area outside the BMU and ignoring the people sitting at tables because they HAVE TO, not because they WANT to, and passing out free candy (jolly ranchers) and brochures with the same mundane “I’m in this club but I don’t really care” attitudes. Like I said earlier, the only person who convinced me, wasn’t even someone I saw at the International Festival. It was Josue Guzman, I saw him on campus, as HE was the one who was PASSIONATE about multiculturalism. I hope he is in charge of planning this event next year!