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.
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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.
I found that statistic on your introduction quite shocking. Good use of facts!
ReplyDeleteI think you have an interesting topic. Who would have thought that smelly mushrooms could bring people together?
As far as sources go, I noticed all of them are from Pennsylvania. I think you should find something other than local sources, for example, how much of the mushrooms consumed across the country come from Kennett. This might add another fact to your paper.
Does this title tell us anything? You should use the multi cultural (bi-cultural ) nature of the event here.
ReplyDeleteFor the record, the majority of community-based festivals are volunteer run.
You have not given us any idea about the festival’s offerings other than ice cream. What happens there? Music? Dance? Cultural awareness? Tours? Conversation? Food? Mushrooms 100 ways? Where and how to Hispanics and others merge for the day? Is it racial and/or ethnic? You will be able to tighten this up with examples as you go further.
Sources:
You included 3 class readings but they have absolutely nothing to do with your topic. You can do better on sources.
Dr. King:
Look at the bibliography in the back of the book I lent you on festivals. I even highlighted some general readings on festival that may be helpful for your paper. There’s a good literature out there on community festivals. I really like how you are reading the festival as a place where racial and ethnic tensions are eased (if just for a brief period). Get some evidence to support your claim. You may also want to look at Russian literary critic Mikhail Bakhtin’s work on the carnival (Rabelais and His World)—he makes a similar argument and pulls from the medieval festivals in Europe. He is often cited in the context of work on the social aspects of festivals. I would think the readings on cultural landscapes would be helpful for your paper. This is a fine start, but delve deeper into secondary texts on festivals and pull from primary sources (written and the festival landscape itself) to prove the effects you discuss. I think this can be a great project. Your angle is strong and fits with class themes well.
Maura,
ReplyDeleteThe first set of comments I posted above are from Dr. Eff. I forgot to type her name in.
I really like your topic and how you wrote about the merging of cultures and backgrounds to celebrate the town. I don't understand your meaning when you speak about sampling ice cream of both cultures. What other culture, besides Mexican, do you mean?
ReplyDeleteCool topic, I really enjoyed the first paragraph! For a while it seemed as if you were just writing about mushroom farms but you smoothly transitioned into the real issue of ethnic discriminatory boundaries.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Dr. Eff in that you should go into more detailed description regarding the events that bring everyone together and how exactly it is that everyone interacts.
I'm fascinated by this whole thing. When you talked about it in class, it was kinda like: "Eh, mushrooms. I like mushrooms. But not enough to have a festival..."
ReplyDeleteBut this is great, I really like the whole ethnic/racial tension. Its very enlightening too, I saw it all the time in NYC but I would hardly have expected it to have such a presence in PA, its just a really eye-opening.
The only thing I noticed hugely was the title, its just kinda bland, especially when the topic is so rich :) Props to your topic!!
I like the idea of this festival. Its amazing how something like this can bring people together in such as way that the ethnic tensions seem to just disappear.
ReplyDeleteI would just be weary of the wording you use. You say that the festival "solves" the issue of racism there for those two days. But does it really? Do those tensions come back afterward?
I like how you start with something lighthearted then transition to the heavier topic of racial boundaries. It's hard to believe something like mushrooms can have such an effect. I'm also excited to hear about the traditions involving the festival, I really appreciate the small town feel of it. However, I was wondering if you could give more information about the festival itself, like other things people might sell or any sort of festivities or games. Otherwise, I think you have a great topic!
ReplyDeleteYou had a strong intro and a great thesis statement. I agree with Vanessa, great use of facts. More details about the things that blend the cultures would be a nice addition.
ReplyDeleteIt's great that you picked a topic that you can speak so much to, having grown up there.
ReplyDeleteI feel as though it might help to focus a little on the differences and cultural boundaries that arise on the other 363 days of the year, to show just how much the festival overcomes.
I really like your topic! I would like to know more about the racial tensions that are in your town year round, and why the festival is able to erase these tensions for two days. Also, I do not know much about what a Mushroom Festival entails, so even if that may not be the main focus of your project, I think it might be key to understanding the bigger picture of racial struggles in Kennett Square.
ReplyDeleteI hadn't heard much about your topic before today so your title totally threw me off. I was thinking you were writing about psychedelics for a second. While I got a good laugh when I realized my mistake and recognize that you may have done this purposefully, it is important to maintain an academic modifier that conveys the summary of the proposal/research.
ReplyDeleteYour thesis makes this festival sound so wonderful! I worry that it is a bit hyperbolic, though, and am curious as to how you would measure/prove this equality.
A very intersting topic. I do have questions though: are you planning on examining the origin of these racial tensions? What do you classify as "tensions"? and are these tensions strictly racial? or is it more the monetary differences that cause the tensions?
ReplyDelete