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United San Antonio Pow Wow: Native American Culture And Dance

On Saturday there’s a Fiesta event that weather won’t likely affect. And it’s one of the Fiesta’s unique get-togethers. It’s called the United San Antonio Pow Wow. What to expect at a Pow Wow?

"You can expect a lot of things including dancing, including different styles of dance and exhibitions.”

Erwin De Luna is the President of the United San Antonio Pow Wow, which is an official Fiesta event.

“It’s free admission, open to the public. We do a lot of things culturally together, and we like to share our cultures with others. We have to dispel a lot of the stereotypes, like we still live in teepees or we live in hogans or that all of us live on reservations, which is not the case. There’s no other festival that will showcase who we are as American Indian people”

If you think of Native Americans as a tiny percentage of Texans, well, you’re mistaken.

“Based on the last census that came out, Texas went from the eighth largest population of American Indians to the fourth in the United States today.”

I noted to him that “If the weather’s like it is today—rainy—no problem.”

“No problem because we’re going to be indoors this year. We’re going to have that this Saturday at Woodlawn Gym. Doors open at ten but we actually start dancing at eleven. And it’ll go until four o’clock in the afternoon.  We have what we call the Grand Entry of Dancers, and that starts at 12:30.  It’s going to be tremendous fun and a lot of educational experiences for everyone to enjoy and to participate as well.”

We’ve more on the United San Antonio Pow Wow here

Jack Morgan can be reached at jack@tpr.org and on Twitter at @JackMorganii