Harem Girls and Camel Races - Sarah McCormick Seekatz

Someone posted about this article on the blog, it's a very interesting history of the "Date" festival that takes place every year in Indio, California.

The author is also doing her PhD at UC Riverside in History on Orientalist motifs in Southern Californian culture - very cool!  I'm glad she is because the date festival, the date farms in places like Mecca, California, and the very interesting connections to the "Middle East" are all things near and dear to me and my research interests too.  Plus a regular trip to Indio is always a good thing, date festival or tamale festival or whatever.

In any event, the article is "Harem Girls and Camel Races:  Middle Eastern Fantasies in the Deserts of Southern California" by Sarah McCormick Seekatz, and it features a ton of great pictures, and you can read the whole thing here:

http://www.kcet.org/arts/artbound/counties/riverside/coachella-valley-middle-eastern-fantasies-desert.html

For more on the date festival and this blog, click the label marked "Date festival Indio" on the right side of the blog under labels.