"It's wonderful," Muhamad Younus said.
Younus and his sons, Aayan, 12, and Sarim, 10, were spending Sunday afternoon at the third annual One World Festival, checking out the various performances, booths and food stands. When One United Lancaster caught up with the family, Aayan and Sarim were engrossed in "The Jewish Child's First Book of Why" at the Jewish Community Alliance of Lancaster stand.
It was delightful to see the range of cultures represented in the room, Younus said.
Held at the Alumni Sports & Fitness Center at Franklin & Marshall College, One World Festival featured a dozen or more local organizations representing various nationalities and ethnic groups.
More than 3,000 people registered in advance and hundreds more turned up spontaneously, organizer Deepa Balepur said.
"Everyone's having a great time," she said.
Sir Dominique Jordan, who describes himself as an artist-activist or "artivist," served as emcee and performed with fellow spoken word artists DVJ and Lexe Jae. Other performers included Latino, Irish, Middle Eastern and Indian dance troupes and the choral group Music for Everyone.
More than 60 volunteers helped with setup and logistics; United Way of Lancaster County helped with their recruitment and coordination.
This was the Jewish Community Alliance of Lancaster's first time at the festival, JCAL member Tama Etra said. One of its goals, she said, was to represent the diversity of Judaism.
"We wanted to show that Jews aren't just 'Fiddler on the Roof,'" she said. "There are many different cultures around the world of Jewish people."
Cee Lo of the Hmong Alliance Church was there to share information about her community. Not a lot of people are familiar with the Hmong, she said; if they are, it's probably due to Clint Eastwood's movie "Grand Torino," which featured a Hmong family living next door to the main character.
The Hmong are an indigenous ethnic group from Southeast Asia. Several hundred thousand were displaced following communist takeover in Laos in the 1970s; Lo's parents were among a few hundred Hmong refugees who were resettled in Lancaster County under the auspices of Mennonite Central Committee and other church groups.
"It's opened a lot of opportunities for us," Lo said.
Nearby, Rachel Duong was representing the Lancaster Asian Americans & Pacific Islanders, a recently formed pan-Asian organization. The group held its second Lunar New Year celebration this past February and planning for the third is under way.
"We love to represent our community," she said. "… We host events throughout the year that are open to the public and uplift and share different Asian cultures."
At a multicultural event like One World Festival, there's something for everyone, Balepur said. It's an opportunity for people to come away with a new appreciation for things they may not have known about before.
When that happens, "that's 'Mission Accomplished,'" she said.
Photos
(Photos: Tim Stuhldreher | One United Lancaster)
