Officials from four Sister Cities enjoy whirlwind weekend
Gilroy – Delegates from Gilroy’s growing list of Sister Cities spent a whirlwind weekend touring the Bay Area, but not before they had a chance to get a taste of Gilroy and its Garlic Festival.
This year’s delegation of 28 representatives came from four of Gilroy’s six Sister Cities, including the newest addition – Angra do HeroÃsmo, Portugal, the island city where Mayor Al Pinheiro was born.
Last month, the mayor and other city representatives took time out of their personal vacations to sign a protocol formalizing the ties between Gilroy and Angra. This weekend, Pinheiro spent the weekend as host for his guests.
Pinheiro introduced the representatives during Friday morning’s opening ceremonies at the Garlic Festival. Delegates also participated in the annual ritual of lighting Gourmet Alley stoves using a flame from the giant burning garlic bulb. The rest of the morning they devoted to tasting garlicky grub and picking up festival souvenirs.
Folk singer José Costa was one of four musicians who visited as part of the Portuguese delegation. He has visited America a dozen times, but he and the three other members of his musical entourage were first-timers to Gilroy and its Garlic Festival.
Costa said the musicians are fresh off 10 days of performing in their home city, which held its summer festival in mid-June.
“It’s different than (the Garlic Festival),” Costa said. “It’s 10 days of festivities – a lot of marching and dancing, a lot of costumes. All the surrounding villages do their own presentation.”
Costa and the other musicians shared a little taste of their culture Saturday night during a performance at a private dinner.
This year’s delegation once again included representatives from Takko-Machi, Japan, Gilroy’s first Sister City. Takko-Machi was an obvious first choice since both have Garlic Festivals, according to Ted Uchido, a local resident who helped translate for the Japanese visitors.
Yoshinori Matsuhashi, the newly elected mayor of Takko-Machi, explained that his city’s festival combines both beef and garlic and is on a smaller scale, attracting about 10,000 visitors over two days at the beginning of October.
Out of all of Gilroy’s Sister Cities relationships, the Garlic Capital’s ties with Japan run deepest. In addition to the annual visit during Gilroy’s Garlic Festival, students from the Japanese city come to Gilroy twice a year.
“Every year they (the students) look forward to coming,” Matsuhashi said. “Before they leave they’re so nervous and scared – when they come back to Japan they have become a much bigger, stronger person. … We would like to strengthen our relationship even more, so kids from here and Japan will have better exchanges.”
The Sister Cities program, which started in Gilroy in 1987, has grown even stronger under Pinheiro’s leadership. Earlier this year, Pinheiro established the group as a formal nonprofit named Gilroy Sister Cities Association. In addition to Japan and Portugal, the association boasts four other Sister Cities, including Monticelli d’Ongina, Italy; Saint Clar, France; Tecate, Mexico; and Koror, Palau, in the northwest Pacific Ocean.
Representatives from Mexico and Palau also joined the delegation, the largest Gilroy has ever received, on a weekend of touring throughout the Bay Area. The group made stops locally at Bonfante Gardens and San Juan Bautista before heading to Carmel, Monterey, and San Francisco.
While they were on the road most of the weekend, festival-goers had a chance to learn about Gilroy’s Sister Cities through an informational tent set up behind the Garlic Festival cook-off stage. A map with lines from Gilroy to its six international partners gave visitors a one-stop visual, while individual displays gave a taste of each city’s unique identity. The Palau exhibit featured wood carvings of the island country’s traditional raised huts, while the Takko-Machi display contained a kimono sash and figurines from the city’s annual doll festival.
“A lot of people didn’t know what Gilroy Sister Cities are about,” said Pam Gimenez, a Gilroy Visitor’s Bureau volunteer helping out at the tent. “They didn’t realize how many Sister Cities Gilroy had.”
As the years pass, the cities list of countries has grown longer. At an opening reception Thursday night, Gilroy received a proposition from yet another city interested in forming bonds.
Young-Je Ha, the mayor of Namhaegun County in Korea, dropped in on the event with several other representatives from his homeland to visit Gilroy.
“Garlic is the main industry in my country and we also have a garlic festival,” he told guests at the reception. “Our hope is that we and the city of Gilroy will become Sister Cities.”
Pinheiro did not discount the possibility, but he said that “for now, we want to strengthen the relationships we have.”
Tonight, the mayor and members of the nonprofit’s board of directors will spend a last night with the Sister Cities delegates at a farewell ceremony.
Richard Barbieri, a member of the newly formed board, said it took a lot of planning to organize a weekend for so many visitors. But he said the rewards justified the effort.
“We’re a global society,” he said. “The more we know about each other, the better off we are.”
