Festival celebrates Asian heritage

This weekend’s third annual Asian Heritage Festival is today (Saturday) in Des Moines. Kim Poam (pome) Logan with the Iowa Asian Alliance says Iowa residents from many Asian origins will be represented, and invited. They’re showcasing 12 ethnic groups, including Cambodian, Laotian, Vietnamese, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Hmong, Indian…and she laughs about being afraid she’ll leave someone out. Logan says there are some 43 different Asian countries, and they bring a diversity to the Hawkeye state. In Iowa, she says they share the fact of being new immigrants, since this is the only event all Asian immigrants share, and it’s only a couple years old. Outside of that, she says they share values like education, families and good jobs, values that cross all boundaries. And she says people from the dozen nations represented at the Asian Heritage Festival have many differences. “The food, the clothing, the language — all of those things are very different,” Logan says. “But what we share right now is, we’re all new Iowans.” They share interests, too, and will host acquaintances from beyond Iowa’s borders.There are people coming for a volleyball league with about 10 teams, from Minnesota, Wisconsin and Kansas City…across the Midwest. There will also be people from Chicago who are representatives in the Filipino Consulate, the Thai consulate, and the Japanese consulate in Kansas City. The annual favorite at this event is the dragon-boat rides, but the volleyball tournament’s expected to draw many people to the festival as well. For adults, cooking demonstrations are always a hit, and everybody loves the song and dance performances and the fashion show. New this year there’s an Asian art and photo pavilion, and an Asian film cinema, showing movies from 12 countries. The Asian Heritage is free, today (Saturday) from 10 till 7 at Waterworks Park in the heart of Des Moines. For more, surf to www.iowaasianalliance.com