ABSTRACT
Michigan’s Tulip Time Festival, which was established in 1927 to celebrate the heritage of one of the largest Dutch settlements in North America, has been one of the most successful events promoting the cultural traditions of a diasporic group in its new home country, community pride and tourism destination development. Tulip Time has been recognized as one of the top 20 events in the world by the International Festival and Events Association, as North America’s third largest flower festival and one of its top 10 ethnic festivals (Tulip Time Festival 2001a). Tulip Time, however, is not a static Dutch festival on American soil. Like the evolving Dutch-American diasporic culture it celebrates, it too has evolved. As an American festival with a Dutch theme, it has incorporated wooden shoe-clad so-called ‘klompen dancers’, tulips, Dutch foods and crafts and parades as well as American-style musical entertainment in order to meet tourist demands. This chapter will examine the Tulip Time phenomenon as the evolving manifestation of Dutch diasporic culture by first exploring how diasporic cultures change; Holland, Michigan as the diasporic setting; and finally the critical issues surrounding Tulip Time’s development and evolution in order to meet changing tourist and community demands.
