The Powell Street Festival

The Powell Street Festival came to my attention in 1988 when I awoke one summer morning and saw through the window of our space at 441 Powell Street a bandstand where the baseball diamond was and before it a semi-circle of little tents. It was the Japanese Festival then -- a celebration of all things Japanese -- which might include me, given that my father's father's mother was Japanese. Too Japanese for her children though, who let it be known, in the English way, that she had put them in a difficult situation. The rest is Madame Butterfly.

We heard a lot last year of the troubles the Vancouver Folk Festival was having, but their problems were largely financial, nothing compared to what has faced the Japanese/Powell Street Festival over the years. After my first Japanese Festival I signed on as a volunteer, which amounted to doing security in the alley between Powell and East Cordova Streets. It wasn't what I saw in that alley but the stories shared with me by those I had assumed I was hired to keep an eye on, people who spoke well of the Festival organizers and their generosity, but ill of certain cops, politicians and gangsters who came into the downtown eastside to prey upon them. Indeed, it is in the spirit of generosity that the problems facing DES residents became the Japanese/Powell Street Festival's problem too.

Yesterday's visit saw the Festival back to pre-pandemic attendance. An active stage, busy kiosks and the usual line-ups for salmon and rice, and a new entry this year: the Potato Tornado. Also familiar was the presence of many biracialized families and their children and now grandchildren, as well as those who live in the immediate area, some of whom live roughly. But what distinguished this year from previous years was a notable bump in transgendered people. Everyone blending comfortably, for the most part, but of course there were exceptions. One came around noon, near the southeast corner of the park. I noticed a young girl of about nine quietly watching a very thin, thinly-dressed woman who could have been nineteen in the throws of drug use -- until out of nowhere came the arm of the father, who grabbed the girl's wrist and yanked her towards him, only to have another very thin, thinly-dressed woman in his face about assaulting her. "I don't give a rat's dick if she's your kid mister my dad did that one too many times to me and look how innocent I turned out." Spontaneous applause. Un-fucken-believeable.