LEO TREADWAY:

The Dragon Festival, known earlier as the Asian-American Festival, was a prominent Asian Pacific event held each summer at Phalen Park in St. Paul. Its vision was to bring together the Greater Twin Cities community in celebration of the diverse Asian Pacific cultures. It sought to foster trust and a sense of community among Asian-Pacific ethnic communities, to enhance a sense of pride in Asian-Pacific Americans by respecting and honoring the dignity and value of Asian-Pacific histories, cultures, and traditions, and to affirm Asian-Pacific people's place within and contributions to the State of Minnesota. Its goals were to build bridges between the various Asian-Pacific communities, as well as among them and the wider social fabric of Minnesota by providing friendly competition through a dragon boat race; to promote understanding of various forms of Asian-Pacific artistic, educational, and athletic activities through cultural performances, martial arts, the healing arts, and outdoor/indoor Asian games, and to build community and establish collaborations with similar organizations in order to provide an incentive for Asian-Pacific Americans to participate in outreach programs of various community organizations.

Leo Treadway was involved with the Dragon Festival as a member of the Board/Planning Committee, and also had responsibility in such areas as general community outreach, fund raising, the parade, dragon boat races, awards, and opening and closing ceremonies.

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The bulk of the collection consists of files relating to the Dragon Festival and Boat Race, and include such material as planning committee meeting minutes, promotional materials, registration packets, photographs, posters, festival guides, and calendars of events. The files contain information about affiliated organizations, participants, and sponsors; Dragon Boat Race planning; participating teams and results; financing, budgets, and fund raising; grant applications; post-festival reviews; opening and closing ceremonies; merchandise; and website design and implementation.

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Availability:

The collection is open for research use.

Preferred Citation:

[Indicate the cited item and/or series here]. Treadway, Leo. Dragon Festival Files. Minnesota Historical Society.

See the Chicago Manual of Style for additional examples.

Accession Information:

Accession number: 16,235; 16,913

Processing Information:

Processing and cataloging of this collection was supported with a Basic Project grant awarded by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC).

Catalog ID number: 007351300

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This collection is indexed under the following headings in the catalog of the Minnesota Historical Society. Researchers desiring materials about related topics, persons or places should search the catalog using these headings.

Topics:

Asian Americans -- Minnesota.

Ethnic festivals -- Minnesota.

Organizations:

Lake Superior Dragon Boat Festival (Superior, Wis.), author.

Theater Mu, author.

Document Types:

Photographs.

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