Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, June 26, 1994                   TAG: 9406260039
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: MEGAN SCHNABEL STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

CITY TAKES A LOOK AT ITS OWN ETHNICITY

For anyone who wasn't at Roanoke's fourth annual Local Color festival Saturday, that's Korean - and Southern - for "welcome."

Such a meeting of cultures was at the heart of the festival, an international bazaar that transformed a block of downtown Roanoke into a mini-global marketplace and gave Roanoke-area residents a brief glimpse into the rich ethnic makeup of their community.

"So many people don't realize how many different ethnic communities make up the valley," said Krista Holloman, special events manager of Downtown Roanoke Inc., which coordinated the festival.

With an ever-increasing number of immigrants and refugees calling Roanoke home, highlighting the area's cultural diversity has become more important than ever, she said.

"Festivals like this are good because they allow groups to preserve their different cultures," said Donna Graham-Dacosta, coordinator of the African dance troupe Chihamba, which performed during the festival. "If people just understood the different cultures and respected their differences, we wouldn't have so many problems."

Among the groups hosting booths at the festival were several dedicated specifically to promoting that kind of international understanding. One, the Southwest Virginia Friendship Force, is a citizen-exchange group that hosts foreign visitors and sends local members abroad. With its motto of "A world of friends is a world of peace," the group focuses on improving relations among nations by allowing individual citizens to discover similarities, said club president Norma Peters.

Roanoke's three sister cities - Wonju, Korea; Kisumu, Kenya; and Pskov, Russia - also were represented Saturday. The sister cities program, which was born out of President Eisenhower's wish to decrease the threat of war by emphasizing personal contact around the globe, already has done much to foster understanding among otherwise disparate nations, said David Lisk, chairman of Roanoke's Wonju organization.

As the ethnic diversity of the Roanoke Valley has grown, so has the scope of the festival, which began four years ago with just three booths. This year, 18 organizations - four of them first-timers - sponsored booths with art, food and information from a wide array of nations. Several more groups have expressed interest in participating in next year's festival, Holloman said.

While it would be a stretch to compare the carnival-like atmosphere of the festival with a high-level global summit, Pearl Fu, the festival's entertainment coordinator, said the importance of such light-hearted cultural exchanges shouldn't be underestimated.

"This is what ultimately will lead to world peace," said Fu, gesturing toward the crowd enthralled by a group of Indian dancers. "This. Not aggression."