With Mary Matsuda Gruenewald named Strawberry Festival Grand Marshal and Mary Mariko Ohno and her students performing multiple traditional Japanese songs and dances, this year’s Strawberry Festival is showcasing Japanese heritage, returning the summer celebration to its roots after more than a century.

As a unifying island tradition, Festival celebrations in recent memory have showcased island music and dancing with three days of musical performances. The Grand Parade has shown island organizations such as the garden club, Voice of Vashon and Thriftway employees. The parade focused its lens on quirky and local entertainment.

For many not familiar with Vashon’s history, the Strawberry Festival name could be confusing. After all, what do any of those things mentioned before have to do with strawberries?

Organizers this year decided to return to the island’s strawberry history and honor the Japanese-American farmers that put Vashon on the map growing strawberries before World War II. From the Matsudas to the Mukais, dozens of berry farmers provided strawberries to the far reaches of the country, but the success stories take a turn after World War II, when 122 island residents, including those farmers, were shipped off the island and taken to internment camps throughout the West.

These events are the basis of the Strawberry Festival and deserve to be recognized and remembered with both festive celebration and somber respect. It’s about time that the island’s Japanese heritage be recognized in the event created to commemorate it. Especially today, with dividing lines being drawn within our country’s borders and far beyond them, it is important to recognize the wide variety of backgrounds that make up the people we surround ourselves with.

Reaching beyond Japanese heritage, Vashon’s past and present farmers are responsible for so much of what the island is known for today, and their struggles go largely unnoticed.

So this weekend, as you drink in the beer garden, listen to music, dance or just watch people go by, take a minute and make sure to participate in the community Bon Odori dance Saturday afternoon. Watch the dance and music performance at 3:30 p.m. that day at the Land Trust or greet someone new.