The fourth annual Golden Harvest Parade and Festival was held on Saturday, Nov. 1 at the California State Capitol building to celebrate unity, harmony and peace, along with highlighting ethnic diversity and multiculturalism.
The festival featured performers and floats, entertaining programs and vendor booths. The vendors included food, commercial and informational booths. Among the vendors were a diverse group of various local food trucks, such as Soul on a Roll and Dino Boba.
Not only was it free to the public, it was also supported by free transportation provided by Sacramento Regional Transit.
The CEO and co-founder of Golden Harvest Parade and Festival’s committee, Wei Zhang, said there was a strong backing that assisted in running the event.
“We have many volunteers to run the event, about a hundred people. We get support from the city and about 30 other sponsors,” Zhang said.
A new Children’s Games event program was introduced this year. The program provided a plethora of engaging activities for festivalgoers to enjoy, such as origami, bookmark making and a robotics show.
The “Artwork Contest” displayed submitted pieces throughout the day until 3:15 p.m., when awards and prizes were presented to the winners. The theme of the artwork was “What does ‘Harvest’ mean to you?” The pieces were collected from the Sacramento, Natomas and Elk Grove school districts, which offered a call for submissions to a wide range of students.
After an introductory performance provided by Citywide Karaoke, the parade’s opening ceremony began at 11 a.m. on 9th St.
Councilmember Phil Pluckebaum announced the commencement of the parade, which marched down Capitol Mall. The parade featured entertainment, like marching bands, lion dancing, martial arts and equestrian rodeo performers.
Following the parade, the stage performances were held in front of the Capitol building. Among the parade and stage performance groups, cultures of people from all over the world were represented such as China, India, Mexico, Vietnam, Pan-Africa, Scotland, Brazil, Hawaii, Ukraine, Pacific Islanders and more.
Some organizations that performed at the event included TOFA, Samba da Terra, Honor Kung Fu Academy, the American Legion and Victoria Mendoza Folkloric Group.
Chongfang Tian, the master of Honor Kung Fu Academy, commented on his experience attending the Golden Harvest Parade and Festival and performing as one of the 23 stage performance groups.
“We were invited by the committee of this group. We’ve been running our studio for 10 years, so we’ve already done a lot of performances and people know us,” Tian said.
Tian also described the growth he’s noticed since the festival was first created.
“It was a very positive event. It’s pretty familiar, this is the fourth year we’ve participated and we’re happy to see more cultural groups,” Tian said. “Cultural representation is important because we have a diverse population in California.”
The Golden Harvest Parade and Festival offered residents of the greater Sacramento area the opportunity to observe its diversity in unison.
Zhang said she believes the festival is unlike any other events or festivals in the city.
“We established this organization because Sacramento is one of the most diverse cities. We wanted the ethnic groups in the area to help each other and promote cultural diversity,” Zhang said. “We chose the venue in front of the Capitol because we want to emphasize that this is the capital of California. It’s meaningful because we’re all in the same location.”
As the Golden Harvest Parade and Festival has been occurring annually since 2022, Zhang said she wishes for the cross-cultural event to grow more popular and shine a light on Sacramento’s rich community.
“Each year we have more people, but we want even more. We want to represent the entire community,” Zhang said. “The capital is a business area, there’s not a lot of people. So, we’d like more people to notice and join and make it more lively.”
Stacey Nguyen, a third-year student from American River College, commented on the variety of entertaining programs at the festival.
“I was surprised by how diverse the performances were and it made each one memorable,” Nguyen said. “I’d love to come see what cultures are represented next year.”
The fifth annual Golden Harvest Parade and Festival will be held on Oct. 24, 2026.
