NEW ORLEANS — Saturday’s cold weather was perfect for the steaming bowls of pho at Tet Fest in New Orleans East.
Thousands of people showed up to enjoy it and other Vietnamese foods, along with live music, dancing, drumming, and a fireworks show. The festival has ballooned in the last two decades and now brings crowds to a part of the city that has been working to boost tourism for years.
Mary Queen of Vietnam church started the Lunar New Year celebration more than 35 years ago. In the beginning, it was only a small fundraiser for each of the church’s ministries. But thanks to “the TV, the internet, the Instagram,” more people have discovered the event, said ministry president Mary Thanh Nguyen, and people could see “they have good food here.”
As an organizer, Thanh Nguyen is responsible for much of that food. She and the hundreds of people who make the festival happen spend two weeks preparing for the three-day event. Her picks for a Tet Fest first-timer are any of the banh mis or the special pho, which features several kinds of meat.
People who come to the festival every year agree the food is the star of the show. “You get some pho, especially on a cold day like this, or some skewers,” said Tommy Nguyen, whose family is heavily involved in the festival.
He also noted that Tet Fest has expanded and changed in the time that he has been coming. “Before it used to just be a lot of Vietnamese people, now it’s more diverse,” he said. Deacon Vinh Tran of Mary Queen of Vietnam Church echoed that, and estimates each day brings in at least 5,000 people now.
The church is on Dwyer Road in the Village De L’Est area of New Orleans East, not far from the former site of Jazzland. Community leaders in the East have been working to bring tourism back to the area since Hurricane Katrina.
Tran said even though many think of the East in a less-than-favorable way, the festival is one place where “Vietnamese, American, Hispanic, they all come out here to enjoy,” without worrying about “crime… fighting… anything but enjoyment family, entertainment, and friendship.”
As for the future of the festival, Tran said no matter how it may grow or change, it will always be held on the church grounds. “The community is our ministry,” he said.
But he and other organizers are still ready for more people to discover what the festival has to offer. “We’re ready,” Thanh Nguyen said. “We have two hundred people. We’re ready.”
Sunday is the last day of Tet Fest. It will open at 9 a.m. and end at 10 p.m.
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