Residents of the greater Orange County area came together at the Great Park in Irvine for the annual Global Village Festival to celebrate music, art and food from around the world on Oct. 5.
Over 20 sponsors supported the event, with UC Irvine and UCI Health serving as the presenting sponsors. The event featured arts and cultural exhibits, a small goods marketplace with a junior makers section, food vendors and a kids village. This year headlined a featured exhibit: Sports Around the World. Attendees could participate in a variety of international sports and hold friendly competitions with each other, ranging from the ancient games of mancala and backgammon to being on the field for yoga.
The festival, commemorating its 23rd year, began as a Multicultural Festival in 1988 and received its name in 2002, establishing the Irvine Multicultural Association.
Jennifer Lucero, director of Special Olympics Southern California and volunteer for the organization’s booth in the sports exhibit, told New University that attending the festival is beneficial because they are “very reliant on volunteers and always looking for coaches, referees and day of event volunteers.” Lucero describes the “boost” that comes with promoting free programs for individuals with intellectual disabilities.
In the cultural exhibits, various consulates and representatives showcased homemade food, traditions and history to festival goers. The Orange County Turkish American Association handed out turkish delights, a chewy and fragrant candy with nuts. The All-Japan exhibition also presented an opportunity for festival goers to make origami cranes.
Community resources such as the Consulate of México, Santa Ana presented booths as well. The consulate’s booth offered a space for Mexican artists to sell their work.
“I appreciate that other vendors are kind and we can reach people to show them what Mexico is,” representative Luis Fernando Villafuerte said.
Festival goers also received resources supplied to the community. OC Waste & Recycling handed out compost and taught attendees tactics to sort household waste. Across the carousel, the UCI Health Gavin Herbert Eye Institute supplied an Eye Mobile truck, offering free adolescent eye screenings to assess whether children are in need of glasses.
“We expect to see around 300 children today,” Eye Mobile coordinator Jennifer Espinoza told New University. “20% of the children who are screened will be referred.”
These services are funded through private donors, according to Espinoza.
UCI Department of Chemistry offered a lip-gloss making booth, where festival goers created lip glosses using versagel base and pigments. UCI MIND presented a real human brain for festival goers to learn more about Alzheimer’s disease.
Since the festival’s debut in 2000, the Irvine Multicultural Association has planned it each year and received community accolades. The festival was voted “Best Festival” by OC Weekly in 2009. In 2021, it was awarded the “Creating Community Award of Excellence” by the California Park & Recreation Society. The festival sees over 25,000 attendees annually, according to Irvine mayor Farrah Khan, who was in attendance this year.
Longtime Irvine resident and festival goer of 23 years Dick Owens attributes his return to “all the diversity we have here in the city.”
“You wanna learn about other people and cultures … this is the place to go,” Owens told New University. “You can’t beat this.”
Noosha Taghdiri is a News Intern for the fall 2024 quarter. She can be reached at taghdirn@uci.edu.
Edited by Karen Wang and Ben De Guzman.
