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"African Diaspora" is even more complex, operating within a tri-continental framework. Every two weeks in this area, artists from an African nation, a Latin American nation where black culture is important, and representative black artists from the United States assemble for a celebration of the great world force that black culture represents.

The "Native American" area of the Festival each week brings an Indian group from a different cultural region of the United States and Alaska. The unusual feature here is that each Native tribal organization plans its own presentation of those aspects of its culture that it chooses to share with the general public.

"Working Americans" and the "Transportation" areas examine the traditional skills of Americans on their jobs. Here, the direction of the research has been two-fold: to focus not only upon the hand-skills of the various occupations but upon the mind-skills of working people as well, expressed in such forms as jokes, cautionary tales and general occupational lore.

In the "Children's Area" some 9,000 children from the Washington area will assemble to exchange their own traditions -- games, riddles, jokes, cheers, paper constructions. In "Family Folklore" Festival visitors see displays of the common lore that families share; they look at family photograph albums and swap family stories, games and customs. Here our folklorists, as in other Festival areas, interview Festival goers who themselves thus contribute to the general knowledge of this little-studied area.