Festival Blog

Based on my experience as a circus clown and a historian of performance, I have identified six eras that illustrate how clowns have been central to the circus

Angel Island Immigration Station was built in 1910 in the San Francisco Bay mainly to process immigrants from China, Japan, and other countries on the Pacific Rim.

Always looking for new ways to keep people engaged in our work, even as it is unfolding, we will provide regular updates on the planning and development of the Catalonia program for the 2018 Folklife Festival.

February 19, 2017, marked the 75th anniversary of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s signing of Executive Order 9066, which authorized the exclusion of Japanese Americans from the West Coast during World War II.

As we approached the thirty-fourth anniversary of the NEA National Heritage Fellowships, the Folk and Traditional Arts staff at the National Endowment for the Arts began to review

In the face of colonization, migration, and other forces that cause people to leave home, those on the move often have few to no belongings to remind them of home. Instead, they must preserve traditions

For fifty years, the Folklife Festival has been creating once-in-a-lifetime experiences with our participants and visitors.

To talk of Native American cookery is to talk of the oldest foods and the oldest cooking methods in North America.

The smell of chorizo and roasting peppers. The sound of pil-pil sauce bubbling. The sight of pintxos lined up waiting to be eaten.