Imagining World Peace At the Skokie Festival of Cultures

America pulling out of the Paris Accord [on climate change]. America ending its participation with the Iran treaty on nuclear weapons. A threatened end to America’s social safety net. The news is so horrific these days that I feel exhausted from it and needed a break. Fortunately, I got it at the 28^th Annual Skokie Festival of Cultures this past weekend.

Flags representing all the participating countries

Skokie, a Chicago suburb of about 70,000 people, is home to people from around the world. About 55% of its residents speak a native language other than English; over 70 languages are spoken here. Every year Skokie’s diversity is not just tolerated. Rather it’s embraced. This year 40 communities participated.

The Skokie Festival of Cultures takes place on the third weekend of May each year. We chose the better of the two days – at least it wasn’t raining – to attend. We visited the booths meeting people this year from Ireland, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Bangladesh, Iraq, Uzbekistan, Sweden, Guatemala, and Korea. People displayed their folk arts and artifacts and talked about their countries to whoever stopped by their booths. We had been blessed to travel to a few of those countries and told the people at each booth about our trips. They were interested in hearing our impressions and we had some nice conversations.

At the Bulgarian Booth

At the Uzbekistan Booth

At the Iraqi Booth

Then it was on to the pavilion to see the dancing and singing. This year we saw dancers from West Africa and Korea. Beautiful performances. Then it was on to an Indian Holi celebration. This festival of colors is observed each spring in India to celebrate a good harvest as well as the victory of good over evil. People throw colorful paints at each other in a festival of all different hues. I had seen this on television but never in person. As usual in Skokie, people from all different backgrounds wanted to participate. A line was formed to get one’s tee shirt to wear to protect one’s clothes. While not quite as colorful as it is in India, it was certainly joyous.

Korean Dancers

Holi Festival

And so now people have shared their songs and dances, their celebrations, and their foods. We are no longer strangers to one another and we can spend another year learning from each other about our respective cultures. If only the rest of the world would learn from Skokie’s experience, the world would be a lot more peaceful. In the meantime, we look forward to next year's Festival of Cultures and the around the world trip in one day that is always so much fun.