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Cinco de Mayo came and went without notice in Holland. That's Holland, Mich. Readers Digest calls Tulip Time here--a week-long celebration of Dutch heritage--the nation's top small-town festival. The Skagit Valley may have more flowers, but much less atmosphere.
Some 1,400 Klompen dancers, mostly high school girls, spend weeks learning the routines for the European-style folk dances. They pull on heavy socks and home-made costumes (patterned after traditional Dutch garb), slip into their clogs and stomp their way through some 50 performances. Parades, too: the governor leads one of them, wielding a broom to sweep the streets clean.
As for the tulips themselves, well, they line the streets of Holland in well-kept beds, and there's a 40-acre field on the outskirts of town. By comparison, the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival, which closed at the end of April, offered visitors over 300 acres of blooms, but no dancing.
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No dancing?! I beg to differ! This year's street fair featured many of the best artists in Skagit County, including Howlin' Lane Fernando, Jake Navarro and Bill Cook (aka Spoonshine Duo), The Bow Diddlers, and Little Red Hen regulars Knut Bell and the Blue Collars.
I'm a midwest expat also. In fact, for my Sophomore year Career Development quarter at Kalamazoo College, I did an internship at the Holland (MI) Sentinel.
I can confirm that they take the whole thing VERY seriously, and rightly so. It's that tourism of the bluehairs throughout the midwest that is the city's biggest economy. Flowers are plentiful, but competing for the most is not the point there. It's basically a Dutch Disneyland. There's an island with a windmill which you can pay to tour. Oh, it goes on and on.
I made some good friends there, but they all thought it was all laughable, or at least crazy.
However, it's hard to square up the fact that Holland's population is about 1/3 hispanic... And I can guarantee the tourists won't see a single one.