Asian American Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander Festival offers culture, food, fun after Bloomsday run

Spokane in May is full of flowers and celebrations. From Bloomsday to the Lilac Parade to this year’s 50th anniversary of Expo ‘74, there is no shortage of events. For the second year in a row, the Asian American Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander Festival is no exception.

With music, dancing, art booths and enough food to feed hungry runners, the festival offers more fun to be had following Bloomsday.

“We start intentionally at 2 p.m.,” said Jacqueline Babol, the president of the Asian American Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander Coalition.

“The runners get done around then,” she said. “Last year, we had a lot of people that came from the Bloomsday run ready to eat, sit down and enjoy the show.”

There will be a range of dancers, musicians and booths, Babol said. The Pacific Islander Association of Spokane will be playing and singing live music while Aloha Hula, a Spokane hula dance group, will be performing.

“They will play a total of seven songs,” said Carolyn Smith, a member of Aloha Hula. “We will be dancing to three of the songs.”

“Our first dance is a traditional ancient style dance. It’s going to be chanted by one of our experts while she plays the Ipu.”

“The second dance is a song called Ulupalakua, that talks about a ranch in Maui,” Smith said. And the third and the last dance that we’ll be doing is called Wahine Ilikea. It describes the beauty of the rain mist on the waterfalls from the mountain top on the island of Molokai. It’s a kind of love song.”

These songs will all be sung in Hawaiian and the dances will be performed by professional Hawaiian hula dancers.

“We’re all from Hawaii, so we’ve all had professional training from a real traditional Kuma Hula,” which is a master teacher in the art of Hula, Smith said. “We like to go out and spread the Aloha and just continue what we all have loved doing since we were young.”

Jesse Tinsley, a member of the Pacific Islander Association and a photographer at The Spokesman-Review, will be playing guitar during the performance.

“Hawaiians love to sit around, eat food and play music,” Tinsley said. “They enjoy sharing the Aloha culture and learning about other cultures.”

Tinsley looks forward to all the different food that will be served at the festival. There will be Pan Asian food, lumpia (Filipino egg rolls), sashimi, sushi, poi and so much more.

In the Hawaiian culture, eating too much food and feeling sleepy is referred to as a “Kanak attack.” Tinsley said he hopes he does not suffer from one of these at the festival.

Following the traditional Hawaiian musical performances, other artists from different cultural groups will be looking to strut their stuff at the festival.

According to Babol, there will be a K-Pop dance group, a young Indonesian musician named Christopher Anderson, who can play several instruments, a Filipino group selling native Philippine souvenirs and a Chinese booth with courses on how to properly pick up rice and other things with chopsticks. The entire event will be emceed by Spokane Chinese Association President Zhu Weiling.

“This event is about gathering cultures together and having a big party,” Babol said.

“We’ve all become friends since the first event last year,” Babol said.

The group comes together on the weekends to practice, dance and cook good food, according to Babol. The festival is just an extension of their hangouts, but this time, everyone is invited.