Culture Fest brings traditions and cultures from across the world to Glendora

To celebrate cultures and communities around the world, Glendora hosted its second annual Culture Fest on Saturday. 

Performers from around the world made an appearance at the event and shared their traditions.

The first group on stage was an African music and dance group. They brought people in the audience up on stage to dance with them. 

The other performances continued the theme of sharing their culture and including the audience. 

Belly dancers would come into the audience and bring people on stage. 

A mariachi band performed original songs and covered classics from Vicente Fernandez. 

Polynesian dancers came up last. They had kids dance on stage with them and switched out costumes and dancers for every song. 

In between performances, the staff asked people to go check out the food and activities that were going on. 

Many food stalls lined the street, each selling food from different cultures like Japanese, Greek and Indian food. The stalls were marked by the country flag that the food originated from. The Salvadorian stall was selling pupusas and had the biggest line. 

Workshops held by people in the community allowed for anyone to create little trinkets that represented an aspect or tradition of different cultures. 

The Glendora Public Library offered people the option to make paper cranes. The staff working the station said their mission is to have 1000 so that they could line the walls in the library with them.

One booth was a gift shop called Shop with a Mission. 

This booth sold handcrafted items by people all over the world. The price tags had a picture of the person who made it as well as information on what they are made out of. 

Elizabeth Thomas, one of the people running a booth, said that the entire sale goes to either the person who made it or an organization that represents them. She doesn’t work for Shop with a Mission, none of the people working the booth do, they were staff working for the city of Glendora. 

At the fest, the booths had items made by people from places like Kenya, Thailand, and Tanzania. 

A few products had pictures of kids, with the proceeds going to the orphanage that houses them. 

Shop with a Mission has a store in Glendora.

 More information can be found here.

Workshops at the Culture Fest included face painting, temporary tattoos and hair braiding.

The hair braiding station was ran by Karlie Cartier who runs a salon specializing in braiding called Hair by Cartier. She was sharing her culture by showing people how to braid. Kids lined up to watch her process and learn. Cartier and her mother shared that hair braids are more of a worldwide thing than confined to one culture now. 

A wall in the middle of the street was set up by the Glendora Rotary Club to have people write a wish on one side and to place a flag on a map of the world based on where they’re from on the other. 

Sheila Gutierrez is a member of the club and one of the staff handing out markers for people to write something. She’s a therapist and said she see’s the wish wall as a very therapeutic experience for everyone, especially kids. 

The kids wrote personal things about themselves. 

One wrote that they wished they had more friends, another wished that their family would never die. 

Most wishes were along the lines of world peace and everyone getting along.

The Glendora Culture Fest celebrated diverse cultures through cultural traditions, food and performances.