One Earth Festival - Garfield Park - June 4, 2003- 1 1/2 stars

May 31-June 1. This event in our city’s oldest park didn’t effectively accomplish its goal of celebrating unity and diversity among different cultures and religions. Isn’t that what the Italian Street Festival at Holyd Roasary Church, the Eiteljorg’s Indian market, the Middle Eastern Festival at St. George Orthodox Church, Fiesta and the International Festival, among others, already do more successfully? Just how the booth selling pewter figurines of wizards and the like meshed with the mission of the event is definitely questionable. If cultural diversity is a key theme, then a diversity of world cultures should be represented beyond hippie clothes and hemp bags. Our city has a history of great cultural diversity that is underestimated and rich with authentic resources that could have been called upon to participate in theis idealized exercise. Booths were not marked and there was no schedule of events to be found. – Mary Lee Pappas