About

Our Story

The Finger Lakes Dragon Boat Festival promotes, educates, and celebrates Asian and Asian American cultures and heritage through dragon boating racing and festival activities.

The Festival is sponsored and hosted by the Ithaca Asian American Association (IAAA). IAAA is a volunteer-based organization and home of the Ithaca Dragon Boat Club. The Festival upholds one of the three IAAA missions: promote, educate, and celebrate Asian and Asian American heritage and cultures.

What is Dragon Boat Festival?

Traditionally, the Dragon Boat Festival is known as Duan Wu Jie (Mandarin) or Tuen Ng (Cantonese) which translates almost literary "Day of Right mid-Day". It also known as Double Fifth Celebration, the Festival is traditionally celebrated on the fifth day of the fifth month in the lunar calendar. Because of the modernization and the popularity of dragon boating, the Festival is becoming known as the Dragon Boat Festival.

https://youtu.be/UYtZ6KX-IkM

This year's Festival is dedicated to our beloved paddler and friend, Lynn Stout

T H E T E A M

Our Organizers

Ithaca Asian American Association (IAAA)

Ithaca Dragon Boat Club - Program of the Ithaca Asian American Association

Multicultural Resource Center (MRC)

Ithaca Asian American Association (IAAA)

IAAA has been hosting the annual Finger Lakes International Dragon Boat Festival since 2006. Its mission is to seek to establish a sense of community among various local Asian American groups, and raise cultural awareness in the greater Ithaca community through education, leadership development, healthy living, fitness, and athletic competition.

Ithaca Dragon Boat Club of IAAA

IAAA purchased two dragon boats from Dalian, China in 2004 and established the Ithaca Dragon Boat Club as a program to promote the not only the sport of dragon boating but its culture and heritage of Asians and Asian Americans.

Multicultural Resource Center (MRC)

The Multicultural Resource Center (MRC) was formed in 1987 by Marcia Fort, a woman of color & leader in the community and Eileen Brown a white ally, as a project of the Greater Ithaca Activities Center (GIAC). It formed to address the lack of ethnic, cultural cross-community understanding in schools and communities in Ithaca by starting a multicultural resource library located in the Beverly J. Martin public elementary school. The MRC was incorporated on January 1, 1998. (http://multiculturalresourcecenter.org/