Final Thoughts on Hola, Knoxville and the Cultural Milieu

I feel compelled to provide a coda to the Hola posts. I obviously enjoyed the whole experience. I loved the food, the dance, the music and the crowds. I loved hearing Spanish as the dominant language of the day. I loved seeing the faces of children and adults, the joy of the day and the colors glistening on a beautiful autumn day on the renewed 100 block.

The next morning I logged onto the Knoxnews website to read their coverage and to comment and link to it so their readers who were interested might check out my blog. The article in the paper that morning and on the website was a good one. It was linked to a photo gallery and implied that Knoxville was celebrating the Latino community. Strangely, I could not leave a comment because comments were disabled. I suspected this was because the comments were so racist they had to turn them off. It was worse than I suspected.

I contacted Jack McElroy, editor, and he said the News Sentinel does not enable comments on articles about the Hispanic community because the posts are so vile. So an article is written implying that Knoxville is embracing its Latino citizens when in fact, quite the opposite is true. I told him I felt this was the true story and should be discussed directly by the editorial staff of the newspaper. He said they had already explored the topic of vile comments. I felt this story was more specific. You can read his response here.

So, what to make of all this? I think a large portion of Knoxville does, in fact, embrace people of other races, religions and every variety of difference we can find. I like to think that this group includes most of our downtown neighbors. Still, there is no way to deny that racism is alive and well in Knoxville. There are hateful bigots to be found for any group and their venom seems particularly trained in 2010 on Latinos, Gays and Muslims. We've had burned houses, burned bars and burned Korans in the Knoxville area in recent weeks.

So who do we want to be? What do we want people to associate with our city? A vocal response to the hate of the neo-Nazis and the celebration of the Hola Festival or burned holy books and frightened gay and lesbian communities? If those who believe in inclusion and value diversity are quiet, those who would destroy it will prevail. I hope Knoxville, and particularly downtown Knoxville will strive for the rich diversity that only acceptance and celebration of those different from ourselves will bring. I long for a downtown in which the color white is blended with every shade in the rainbow, where the cadences of dozens of languages can be heard on the square and where anyone in love can hold hands without fearing what might happen when they round the next corner.

What kind of Knoxville do you want? What will you do to make it happen?

Hola Festival, Dos

The Farragut High School Band, Hola Festival, Parade of Nations

Representing Latino-Americans at the Hola Festival

The children looked so beautiful and so sincere.

The Parade of Nations opened the festival at 11:00 AM. It would have been very helpful if this was made clear on the website. I knew there was a parade and I wanted to be there, but I had no idea when it would happen. I e-mailed and was referred to the website, so I went at 11:00 suspecting it might be early. It was great fun. An excellent MC who switched comfortably between Spanish and English introduced each of the countries as they paraded. First up was the Farragut High School Marching Band, which as I mentioned in the last post has a Spanish connection.

Urban Baby says, "I've got some snacks in my bag. Let me know when Diego shows up."

Diego!

Afterward, a number of countries paraded past with several people dressed in traditional clothing for that part of the Latin world. Of course, Diego made his initial appearance of the day in the parade. The pictures almost took themselves. Spectacular color and larger than life joy abounded. I hope you like them.

  

Hola Festival Comes to Downtown Knoxville

Cacti on Gay Street pointed to the festival, Knoxville, October 2010

South Entrance and Stage for Hola Festval

Hispanic Heritage Month, celebrated in October, culminated with the Hola Festival held on the 100 block of Gay Street. Music, food, colorful costumes from the various Latin American countries and Spain set the tone for a fun and festive day attended, according to the KPD by ten to twelve thousand people. Special mentions were made of the miners trapped in Chile as well as historical figure and local namesake Admiral Farragut whose father was a Spaniard who fought in the revolutionary war. He has been adopted by the local Latino community as a sort of symbol of Spanish-American pride.

The festival was much to big - it ran from Summit Hill to the viaduct north of the 100 block - and long (from 11AM to 8PM) to be covered in a single blog post. I also want to post as many pictures as possible, so this post will simply cover a few pictures I took as it was getting started. I'll follow with more in subsequent posts.

Gracious Ladies

Precious Girls

To those of you who have become accustomed to nearly daily posts and have noticed that I didn't post for several days, I'll just say that sometimes real life trumps digital life and that's why I haven't posted for three days. I think that's the longest span I've missed since I started. Until I become a full-time blogger (read "never") that will probably happen from time to time. I do promise to simply pick up again and spare you the personal details other bloggers might expect you to suffer through. :-)

I hope you enjoyed the pictures. I hope the joy of the event shines through. More pictures will follow.