'Shrooms

Nestled in southeastern Pennsylvania between Chadds Ford and Toughkennemon, Unionville and Hockessin, is the one-mile by one-mile town of Kennett Square.  This tiny town grows sixty-five percent of the mushrooms grown in America, making it the self-proclaimed Mushroom Capital of the World.  

Kennett Square’s large mushroom industry produces many hard-labor jobs, which are quite popular to immigrants.  Historically, immigrants wind up working in the agricultural, maintenance, construction, and food service industries. Southeastern Pennsylvania mushroom farms employ approximately nine thousand individuals.  Because of the need for a large manual workforce in Kennett Square, it is a popular immigration destination for many Hispanics. As a result, the percentage of Kennett Square’s population that is Hispanic is more than twice that of the national average (Kennett).  Along with a high percentage of Hispanics comes with a high population of non-English speakers.  This, in turn, causes a high level of racial and ethnic tension in the town at all levels.  Whether in the form of an elderly white woman trying to buy bread at a Mexican bakery, or a Hispanic student trying to understand his math teacher, there is an obvious brick wall between the white and Hispanic populations in Kennett Square. 

Each year, there is a festival to commemorate what put the town on the map.  The Mushroom Festival embodies the two days out of the year in which the racial and ethnic boundaries disappear.

w.c. 236

For citizens of Kennett Square, the Mushroom Festival, held the on the second weekend of September each year, is the pinnacle event of the year.  For those two days, the color of a person’s skin or the language he or she speaks does not matter.  On those two days the only thing that matters is cramming as many people as possible onto State Street, which is Kennett Square’s version of a Main Street, to enjoy what the mushroom industry has given the town.  Twenty-five years ago, when the festival began, it was just a small celebration among a few townspeople.  Today, over 100,000 people visit the mushroom festival each year.  Something unique about the festival is that it is entirely run by volunteers.  The community comes together, even just for those two days, to make something great.  On one end of State Street is the Mexican ice cream shop.  During the festival, there is an ice cream stand up the street.  People sample ice cream from both places, regardless of their ethnic backgrounds.  Contrary to the rest of the year, crime is virtually non-existent during the festival.  The Mushroom Festival highlights the still present problem of racism.  Sure, it has changed from hatred for Jews in Germany, and hatred of blacks in America, but it is still here.  It is one thing to highlight a problem.  It is another entirely to solve it.  The festival temporarily does just that.

w.c. 240

Sources:

Barber, Chris. "Many Changes on Tap for This Year's Mushroom Festival." The Kennett Paper [Kennett Square] 1 Sept. 2010. Print.

Bastalick, Henrietta, Janice Taylor, and Richard Taylor. Kennett Square, Yesterday and Today: A History of the Borough of Kennett Square in the County of Chester in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Kennett Square: KNA, 1982. Print.

Forese, Bernadette. "Kennett Square Citizen on Mushroom Festival." Personal interview.

Hayward, Mary Ellen. Baltimore's Alley Houses: Homes for Working People since the 1780s. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 2008. Print.

Horton, Tom. An Island Out of Time: A Memoir of Smith Island in the Chesapeake. New York: W.W. Norton, 1996. Print.

Hughes, Samuel. "Digging Routes." The Pennsylvania Gazette (2009): 38-45. Print.

"Kennett Square Pennsylvania (PA) Census and Detailed Community Profile - AmericanTowns.com." AmericanTowns.com: Online Local Community Network - Connecting The Community Is What We Do Best. 18 Oct. 2010. Web. 26 Oct. 2010. <http://www.americantowns.com/pa/kennettsquare-information>.

Lafferty, Kathi. "Mushroom Festival Coordinator." Personal interview.

Mushroom Festival 2009 Kennett Square Pennsylvania USA. YouTube. 12 Sept. 2009. Web. 24 Oct. 2010. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1PK9MKBwtU>.

Mushroom Festival. 2010. Web. 24 Oct. 2010. <http://www.mushroomfestival.org/>.

Taylor, Bayard. The Story of Kennett. Charleston: BiblioBazaar, 2008. Print.

KSQ: A Neighborhood Built on the Mushroom Industry

Waking up to the smell of freshly turned soil of a mushroom farm is how I know I'm home.  On any given morning, the entirety of Kennett Square, Pennsylvania is overcome with the pungent smell of mushroom fertilizer.  We are the mushroom capital of the world.  It is this wonderful smell that unites the town of Kennett into one cohesive neighborhood.  We even have a Mushroom Festival each year to celebrate the wonderful food that put our town on the map.
Nestled neatly next to Route 1 between Chadds Ford and Toughkenamon latitudinally, Unionville and Hockessin longitudinally, in the heart of Southern Chester County, the town is primarily white and Hispanic, with a small black population.  While there are some predominately Hispanic sections of town, the people of Kennett live together in peace.
Although the community is primarily middle class, income in Kennett fully runs the gamut.  State Street, our version of Main Street, houses shops ranging from upscale boutiques, to restaurants, to a tattoo shop, to Mexican bakeries.
Kennett is a very safe community, where law enforcement openly drives around because it has nothing else to do.  One of the main factors in keeping Kennett safe is the Garage Youth Center, which plays host to the likes of homework help, private tutors, youth groups, and mentor programs.  Almost all of Kennett's youth has been to the Garage at one time or another, the result of which is profound on middle and high school age children.  Kennett's youth wants to go to school.
The combination of ideal location, abundant, coexistence, booming industry, and excellent education makes Kennett Square a wonderful place to live.
word count: 273