Welcome to the 2004 Smithsonian Folklife Festival, featuring programs on Haiti, Latino music, and Mid-Atlantic maritime culture. The Festival continues its long tradition of presenting the diverse cultural heritage of the people of the United States and the world to large public audiences in an educational, respectful, and profoundly democratic way.

This year, the Haitian people mark the bicentennial of their independence. In 1804, inspired by American and French ideals, Haitians fought for their own freedom, abolished slavery, and created the second independent nation in the Western Hemisphere (the United States was the first). Haitians have