Why Celebrate?

by Moe White

The core of every culture is its stories: its history, myths, anecdotes, family sagas, oral traditions – what has sometimes been called the racial memory of a people.

Wide-ranging ethnic groups like “Latin Americans” or “Celts,” small national or regional subgroups – Costa Ricans, Irish – and even narrower tribal groups like the Hatfields and McCoys carry their cultural identity in their spoken and written stories. And those stories can carry equal amounts of joy and strife.



Recently
the Southern Appalachian Repertory Theatre in Mars Hill presented, for
the second year in a row, the story of the Shelton Laurel Massacre, a
Civil War horror that has impacted families in Madison County for 140
years. Descendants of those massacred and those who gave the order for
the killings tell different versions of the story, each having kept
alive their interpretation and memory of their shared history for
generations. The avowed purpose of the production was to open a
dialogue between the sides of the dispute, offering a forum wherein
people could talk with each other, perhaps for the first time in
decades.


On a longer historical scale, Shiites and Sunnis in Iraq and elsewhere
in the Middle East trace their enmity back a millennium, and in the
1990s Muslims, Serbs, Bosnians, and ethnic Albanians in the former
Yugoslavia fought a civil war that destroyed their country over
centuries-old ethnic divisions. In those two cases, unfortunately,
there was no vehicle to allow for talking (not shouting), finding
shared values, and seeking common ground. And we see the results in
Iraq every day in the count of the dead.


So why celebrate
the particular characteristics of Latin American and other Hispanics in
Western North Carolina each September? Why highlight the differences
between Spanish-speaking immigrants and native-born Americans? Why now,
when anger towards illegal immigrants has riven the country? Why hold a
Fiesta Latina at all when so much strife has arisen over the centuries
as a result of racial, ethnic, religious, and clan differences?


The simple
answer is to have a good time. For anyone who enjoys a party, even with
a room full of strangers, it’s an opportunity not to be passed up.


But a more
honest answer is that every culture or subculture in the world has much
to celebrate, something to offer, unique qualities that can be
appreciated by anyone who is willing to learn about and experience it.
The key is being willing to walk up to an open door and respectfully
ask, “May I come in?”


Each of us might
appreciate a different thing. It might be the food, or dance, or a way
of observing rites of passage. It might be crafts: pottery, weaving,
woodwork, basketry, painting, or tattooing. It might be the use of
language – think of the way the Welsh turn a phrase, the Russians write
poetry, or the Chinese create word-images by combining ideographic
characters. It might be music – the bass voices in an African American
gospel choir, a Sibelius symphony’s strings and brass, or the rhythms
and harmonies of Appalachian fiddle and banjo tunes.


Probably most
widespread way of opening a door between cultures is food. Even the
most unsophisticated traditionalist will venture out for a Mexican
lunch or Chinese dinner, just as the more adventurous will make a point
of attending the Greek festival each October or Goombay every summer –
just to have a plate of Spanakopita or a Caribbean pulled pork
sandwich, or taste alligator meat for the first time. And once someone
is willing to accept that “those people sure know how to cook,” he or
she might be a little less likely to reject the possibility that they
might know how to do some other things, too – like paint, or make
quality shoes, or perform music – or even read, write, think, teach,
and practice law.


Such visible,
tangible aspects of a culture might not be enough to break down
barriers between peoples, but they often do open doors to
understanding. As a native Ashevillean, I think of the stories told by
elders in the Greek community in the 1960s and ’70s of their early
years in Asheville from 1916 to World War II.


These
first-generation immigrants went to a different church – the Greek
Orthodox faith was as alien to early-20th-century Asheville as Zen
Buddhism was in the 1970s. They spoke a different language, one that
nobody native to these mountains could understand. They had different
customs, like celebrating Easter weeks before or after the rest of the
community. And they dressed funny, looked funny, and ate funny foods.
They were isolated, sometimes laughed at (who could pronounce those
peculiar names?), and subtly or unsubtly discriminated against.


But by the time
I was growing up, Greeks operated many of the most popular restaurants
as well as other successful businesses all over town. They were members
of the City Club and the Country Club and the swim clubs at the Grove
Park Inn and the Manor. As a cultural group, Greeks had kept, even
cherished, their religious and ethnic identity, while adapting
completely to the American way of life. Food had certainly been an
important part of opening doors, as had a strong work ethic, deep
faith, and pride in who they were as Greeks. And over time, non-Greeks
accepted the invitation to visit, and reciprocated.


Getting the
“others” in through the door is why Fiesta Latina is such a good idea.
It’s good for the Latin American community just as festivals are good
for Greeks and African Americans – and members of any other culture in
the area. Equally, it’s good for everyone else, simply because the
festival invites everyone, Hispanic and non-Hispanic alike, to listen
and learn while a culture is telling its stories.