Laynee “Bluebird” Reyna helped to found the California Indian Market 31 years ago, but this year’s event in May is the last with her at the helm.
Reyna co-founded the California Indian Market & World Peace Festival as a way to benefit Peace Vision, her nonprofit promoting peace through arts. At age 80 now, Reyna will hand over her duties to other organizers, including her co-founder husband, after this year’s event May 2 and May 3, she told the Free Lance.
“I’m an elder, a very, very elder,” said Reyna.
The author and spiritual counselor, also a medic during the Korean War, founded the festival in 1984 along with her husband whom she married that same year.
That first year, Reyna recalled, the founders brought out an Apache dance team from Santa Fe, N.M.
“I’m a dreamer,” she said. “I’m a seer.”
Two of the main goals with the festival—which includes such offerings as Native American dance, arts, crafts, music and food—are to “enhance cultures and bring people together,” she said.
Look back for more.
Festival details:
The 31st annual California Indian Market & World Peace Dance Festival is set for May 2 and May 3 from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. at the San Juan School Soccer Lot, The Alameda and Highway 156. It will include Native American arts, crafts, dance, drums, foods, music. It will be celebrating Cinco de Mayo with Aztec dance groups. There is an educational benefit with a $1 donation. It is free to children under 12. Organizers will be honoring military veterans and Cinco De Mayo. It is sponsored by the Gilroy Children’s Center and San Juan Bautista Rotary Club. For more information, go to www.peacevision.net or call (831) 623-4771.
