Reston Multicultural Festival Marks 25th Anniversary as Fairfax County Grows More Diverse

The Reston Multicultural Festival marked its 25th anniversary on Saturday, an event Supervisor Walter Alcorn said honors Reston's founding principles of arts, culture and inclusivity.

Alcorn thanked the Reston Community Center, Reston Town Center Association and BXP for hosting the annual festival, which features music, dance, traditional crafts and cultural traditions from around the world.

"As I said in my remarks at the festival's opening, multiculturalism and diversity are our community's strength — and it's what attracts people to Reston," Alcorn said.

He noted that Reston was founded in the early 1960s by Bob Simon as an open community welcoming people of all races, at a time when dozens of banks refused to finance its development.

Fairfax County as a whole is becoming more diverse, according to a demographic report released in June. Less than half of the county's residents are now white (49.5%), based on 2020 Census data cited in the report, compared with almost 70% twenty years earlier. Asians make up 20.5% of the population, Hispanics 17.3% and African Americans 9.6%, up 1% from 20 years ago.

Alcorn said diversity broadens perspectives, fuels innovation in the arts, food, culture and business, and is vital to economic success. He cited an MIT study finding that immigrants are 80% more likely to start a business than people born in the U.S., and noted immigrant entrepreneurs founded or co-founded companies including Alphabet, Nvidia, Tesla, SpaceX and Instacart.

At his booth during the festival, Alcorn invited attendees to pin a world map marking where they were born or had lived outside the U.S. He said the pins dotted every continent except Antarctica.

"I'm so proud to be a Restonian where we've embraced multiculturalism and diversity from the beginning," he said.

In other news from the Hunter Mill District, the Friends of the Reston Library Fall Book Sale runs through Sunday, with proceeds funding literacy materials and programs. The waitlist for affordable apartments at The Exchange at Spring Hill Station in Tysons opens Oct. 5, and a free Brain Health and Dementia Resource Fair will be held Oct. 3 at the Fairfax County Government Center. A ribbon cutting for the Ashgrove Trail and Old Courthouse Spring Branch Stream Restoration is set for Sept. 28 at 5 p.m.