Post navigation

Prev: (04/29/14) | Next: (04/30/14)

Margarita mile: Taco trucks, runners in serapes to again fill Volunteer Park for Fiesta 5K

Ole or olé? Fiesta 5K is Saturday (Image: CHS)

Ole or olé? Fiesta 5K is Saturday (Image: CHS)

map2013The only organized 5K on Capitol Hill returns this weekend to Volunteer Park. But let’s be real — most people will be there for the taco trucks, the beer garden and the bands.

The big brand-backed, SeaFair-powered, commercial radio station produced, occasionally culturally insensitive Fiesta 5K Ole will feature costumed runners and taco truck lines again Saturday, Tres de Mayo, in Volunteer Park. Finally, in the third year of the event since its 2012 debut, Tacocat will be there!

¡Fiesta 5K Ole! Event Schedule:
09:30am –¡Fiesta 5K Olé! Run/Walk Starts

9:45am – ¡Fiesta 5K Ole! Post-Run Party & 1077 The End’s Beer Garden Opens

11:00am– ¡Fiesta 5K Ole! Costume Contest in Beer Garden

1:00pm – 2:00pm – DJ set by 107.7 The End DJ

2:00 – 3:00 – TacoCaT takes the stage

3:30pm – 4:30pm – The LEAGUES rock Volunteer Park

5:00pm – Post event parties throughout the Hill start

Hillebrities TacocaT will rock Volunteer Park

Hillebrities TacocaT will rock Volunteer Park

Subscribe and support CHS Contributors -- $1/$5/$10 per month

7 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Tired Of Racist Events
Tired Of Racist Events
9 years ago

Please Sign This Petition

http://www.change.org/petitions/107-7-the-end-change-your-event-s-theme

107.7 The End’s benefit, “Fiesta 5K Ole/Food Truck Challenge,” (http://www.fiesta5kole.com/) is happening this Saturday, May 3rd. This racist event mocks Mexican@ community and its people and is highly offensive.

The event’s theme, imagery, pictures posted on the website, among other things are incredibly offensive. They depict Latin@, specifically Mexican@, communities and culture in incredibly superficial and appropriative ways. Mexican culture and imagery are much more than “sombreros” and “tacos” and in fact has a rich cultural history that these superficial and stereotypical images and imagery fail to understand and represent AND not like I want my culture appropriated in any ways at all! Anything that reduces an entire people and their cultural heritage to such simplistic levels are demeaning and objectifying. It also reduces what may have been significant things, to comedic levels for people’s amusement and consumption to believe they have ownership over it and do with them what they want.

People can’t simply “put on” or “take off” their cultural heritage, experiences, and upbringings. To have an event with a theme such as this one, says that people can simply do this and I can’t. And if I had the option, I wouldn’t.

Events like these are not new. They are objectifying and oppressive. Events like these equate and reduce cultural heritage, tradition, and communities to nothing but simplistic images. We are not here for your amusement, for your drunken escapades, your appropriation, or a filler for you “cultureless” life.

The folks who are participating are not inherently bad evil or horrible yet their actions and lack of consciousness are incredibly racist and fueled and centered on white supremacist logic. Culture is not for sale, for appropriation, for tokenization, for consumption. Trauma, power/powerlessness and oppression are woven into white supremacist logic and behavior and choices such as these.

For “research purposes,” please watch the following video http://bit.ly/1mdOomG and visit the website to understand what to expect of this themed event: http://www.fiesta5kole.com/.

Let’s put “An End” to this themed event, demand accountability of 107.7 The End, Seattle Weekly and the Seattle PI for sponsoring such an event, and demand that they do not repeat a culturally appropriative and tokenizing event again.

Take Action (TBA): There’s a flyer being created to pass out during the event to raise awareness and have folks “join us” in rejecting and taking accountability for these decisions. We’ll be meeting on Saturday at Volunteer Park (time to be updated) to call for “An End” to this demeaning theme and cultural appropriation and tokenization.

Sign the petition below. In love, rage, struggle, resistance, and dignity.

Jeff
Jeff
9 years ago

I just can’t put into words the mix of negative feelings I get from reading what you’ve posted here. It’s too bad you can’t put your passion into something worthwhile. Maybe you’ll come to learn that this isn’t a mockery or thievery of anyone’s culture. It’s just some harmless fun that you wouldn’t think twice about if every participant was mexican-american. You can’t call it racist just because a white person is doing it

O0O
O0O
9 years ago

As an Mexican-American woman, I have mixed feelings about events like these. On the one hand, it’s cool that my culture is out there, but then I think, is it worth it if its askew, sensationalized? To me it just feels like one big cartoon. Is it harmless? I’m not sure about that. All I know is that I’m dissuaded from going because it misrepresents my culture.

EonBroadway
EonBroadway
9 years ago
Reply to  O0O

As a Mexican-American I too have mixed feelings on this. It’s not celebrating an action or a culture at all. Cinco de Mayo has just become a dumb reason to scream “andale” and swill tequila. How would some of these people like it if on Columbus Day we went around wearing togas and flinging pasta?

Roberto
Roberto
9 years ago
Reply to  EonBroadway

Actually, wearing togas and flinging pasta sounds like a hellevua lot of fun!!
Yeah, it’s a fine line between being culturally sensitive and being an killjoy uptight wad. Perhaps we should shut down St. Patrick’s Day festivities as well to spare sensitive Irish souls?
I don’t think any reasonable person is conflating these goofy celebrations as authentic representations of the cultures they’re aping. I guess it’s more about not taking yourself and your culture all that seriously, and focusing your energies on REAL injustices, such as oppressed underpaid workers, hiring discrimination, indiscriminate deportations, etc.
Equating this tomfoolery with “white supremacy” isn’t just an insult to the real victims of white supremacy (such as lynching victims), but reduces bonafide terrorists such as the KKK to a comical level. Which is pretty foolish thing to do with any violent group.
I happen to be Latino, but that really has zero bearing on my opinion. Shrug.

trackback

[…] mile: run in the Fiesta 5K on Saturday or skip the run and just show up for the taco trucks and the 2pm music set by TacoCaT […]

trackback

[…] will cheer you up! But the margaritas, beer garden and taco trucks at the Margarita Mile 5K in Volunteer Park this Saturday. Also, Tacocat is playing so you should run, not walk. (Get […]