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Meanwhile, Back in the New Country
Happy Westfest 2006. I guess we missed it in Brno. West, Texas, is one of the great remaining bastions of Czech-Americans in the United States. Every summer they have a festival to celebrate their Czech heritage by dancing the polka, baking kolaches, and having a good time. I've done a fair amount of research on such festivals, and they are something that everyone American interested in Czech studies should know about and experience. If you follow any European-American ethnic community or are familiar with small towns of the Midwest, then you probably also have an idea what these things are like.
A wonderful set of photos from Westfest 2006 by Rod Aydelotte was posted at the Waco Tribune. A few details will immediately tell you it's not the Czech Republic: Most tellingly, the last picture is a lemonade stand (real Czechs wouldn't be caught dead without a cold beer, kielbasa, and a shot of slivovice on a festival day); there are also too many babies (none in prams) and big trucks; and, there is a large boy scout troupe in front of a wall of heroes (you see war monuments in the Czech Republic, and most Czechs don't seem into hero worship unless there is a direct family connection or you're talking about Havel, Masaryk, or an artist or author).
Tags: czech, czechamerican, photos
A wonderful set of photos from Westfest 2006 by Rod Aydelotte was posted at the Waco Tribune. A few details will immediately tell you it's not the Czech Republic: Most tellingly, the last picture is a lemonade stand (real Czechs wouldn't be caught dead without a cold beer, kielbasa, and a shot of slivovice on a festival day); there are also too many babies (none in prams) and big trucks; and, there is a large boy scout troupe in front of a wall of heroes (you see war monuments in the Czech Republic, and most Czechs don't seem into hero worship unless there is a direct family connection or you're talking about Havel, Masaryk, or an artist or author).
Tags: czech, czechamerican, photos
Posted 06 September 2006 at 00:13.
A graduate student in music and anthropology writing a dissertation about music in Moravia, the eastern third of the Czech Republic. At some point, the Czech Republic's "second city" (that would be Brno) captured my attention, and I've since been blogging about events, arts, music, and other stuff—basically whatever interests me in and around the cityscape. I'm not living in Brno now, but I keep up with the cultural pulse from afar as best I can.
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