May is Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month.
NBC 5 continues to highlight North Texans who are proud of what it means to be part of the fastest-growing population in Texas.
Over the weekend, the city of Dallas celebrated a big milestone – its first ever Asian Heritage Festival and Dragon boat race. At least 7,000 people came out to the event, which highlighted food, performances, and art work from different Asian cultures and AAPI organizations.
One of the biggest highlights was the Dragon boat races on White Rock Lake. Dragon boating is a tradition from China dating back thousands of years ago.
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"Then in the early 1980s, it became a competitive sport near Hong Kong and then expanded to Southeast Asia and just exploded into a phenomenon internationally," said Shirley Che, one of the coaches and founding members for DUC Delite, the dragon boat team for the Dallas United Crew.
Dragon boat racing has become very popular in North America, especially in Texas. DUC Delite was founded 12 years ago and has grown significantly over the past decade. Some Dallas members even competed with the Texas team in the world championship last year.
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“Even though this world originated in Asia, it's huge in North America. In fact, at the world championship last August in Thailand, it was the Canadians and the U.S. that were neck and neck for the world championship title,” said Che.
You can still see those old traditions carried on today. Twenty paddlers file into an ornately decorated dragon boat, moving the craft to the beat of a drummer on board. The drummer also assists in steering the boat as the paddlers race toward a finish line.
On Sunday, the team had the chance to share their talents with the community in a first-ever collaboration with the city of Dallas. Che said they had planned such an event for years but couldn't do it alone.
"[We feel] very sentimental, we're very excited and it looks better than any version of our vision when we were just doing this alone. So having the city behind our back is really cool," she said.
The team hopes the exposure will bring on more members to experience a tradition unlike any other found in North Texas. Anyone is invited to join, no matter your age, athletic abilities or background.
“I feel very hopeful,” said Che. “I had the privilege of seeing what an international level dragon boat race could look like with tens of thousands of spectators and the fact that it's not here yet, it's just a missed opportunity.”
For more information on joining the team, click here.
Festival organizers said this cultural festival was a long time coming for Dallas – too long, perhaps.
“We really want to create experiences that strengthen communities and there's no better way than having a cultural festival where people get to share food. They get to watch performances, they get to take workshops, they get to do art activities and compete in an athletic event that's really open to everybody," said Emily Ponchelle, with the Office of Arts and Culture for the City of Dallas. "We get to celebrate the unique Asian and Pacific Islander heritage and celebrate how unique and beautiful that is."
Ponchelle said they knew it was crucial to make the festival happen, especially since Dallas is home to some of the largest Asian populations in the Southern United States.
“It's also been really important for the city of Dallas to grow our networks within the AAPI community because I feel like that's an area where we haven't had much involvement, so this is something that's kind of like a first step for the city of Dallas and the Office of Arts and Culture to develop and cultivate more of those relationships,” she said.
The city partnered with large AAPI organizations including the National Association of Asian American Professionals DFW chapter.
“We're all trying to achieve the same goal in some sort of fashion. We just want to continue uplifting the AAPI community whether that be through professional development or personal development so it's great to see the collaboration we can do together in order to bring visibility to us in the Dallas community,” said Crystal Pang, VP of programming for NAAAP DFW.
The city is also hoping to raise awareness on funding programs they have for artists and cultural organizations to help make more of these celebrations happen every year.
"So if you're an independent artist or if you're with a cultural organization, we want to connect with you. We want to provide you with the financial means so that you can get out in the community and do more things like this," said Ponchelle.
For more information on the funding opportunities, you can email oaccommart@dallas.gov or click here for the website.
