Fox Valley's ethnic influences mingle at Elgin fest

As I ate a cup of cheesy, bacon-flecked goodness called elote fries, I watched two Indian girls perform a dance that represented the Mother Goddess.

Wafting from the next tent over was the voice of Miss Illinois 2014 Marisa Buchheit (German for "beech tree heath"), practicing the famous "O Mio Babbino Caro" aria by Italian Giacomo Puccini.

Such was Elgin's iFest Saturday at The Centre downtown.

Dancers from a Polish troupe stood in line for aguas frescas, across a street from a food truck selling Jamaican jerk foods.

Inside the Centre, kids slid around on a giant plastic map of the state of Illinois, or sat in a huge inflated globe while a representative from the Geographic Society of Chicago talked about the different places we and our ancestors came from.

Even Scots were represented, in historical re-enactors from the North West Territory Alliance.

As Sharon Gora of Batavia wove a sash on an inkle loom, she said she was portraying a member of the 84th Regiment of Foot of the Royal Highland Emigrants. The Scots' regiment was sometimes referred to as turncoats, she said, because they allied with the British during the Revolutionary War. The regiment acted as border patrol in the Northwest Territory to keep supplies and sympathizers from Canada from crossing in to the rebellious colonies.

It was the sixth annual international festival. It used to be held on a different date, at a location on Riverside Drive. It moved to the Centre so that some exhibits with cultural items would be protected from the weather and so the date would sync with two other ethnic events - a Cinco de Mayo celebration that was Friday and the Gail Borden Library's Asian Pacific American Heritage celebration Saturday afternoon.