The annual Cherry Blossom Parade in San Francisco this last Sunday is one of my favorite civic occasions.
The parade itself is fairly small...
...and features lots of children.
Just about everyone dresses in some kind of costume...
...and often plays a musical instrument.
What struck me as different this year was that this affair used to be much more strictly segregated to those of Japanese descent...
...but like much else in California the racial boundaries are blurring...
...and it was a heartening sight.
Most parades in San Francisco start downtown and end in the Civic Center Plaza...
...but the Cherry Blossom Festival Parade assembles in the plaza and then marches their way up to Japantown on Geary Boulevard.
There was a multi-culti Butoh troupe...
...and a Hawaiian dancing contingent...
...with multi-racial hula dancers.
The visual coup of the afternoon was Clarendon Elementary School...
...which has a Japanese Bilingual Bicultural Program...
...and an extensive supply of red caps.
The cherry blossom season has already come and gone (click here for "Vivienne Westwood and Global Warming") but it didn't matter. The parade looked and felt like Spring.
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