Sakura Matsuri, a Japanese cultural street festival, returned to Georgetown University’s campus for the first time since before the COVID-19 pandemic to celebrate the arrival of cherry blossoms in Washington, D.C.

The festival itself is one of the largest celebrations of Japanese culture in the United States. The festival usually occurs in late March or early April, scheduled to coincide with the peak bloom of cherry blossoms in respective host locations. Georgetown’s iteration was hosted by Georgetown’s Japan Network (J-NET), a group of students dedicated to preserving and promoting Japanese culture, on April 2, and organizers said they held the festival to facilitate greater appreciation of Japanese culture in the university community. The festival offered various arts, culture and food booths to introduce attendees to traditional Sakura Matsuri customs and practices.

J-NET Co-President Izzy Asker (CAS ’25) said she wanted festival participants to experience all the elements of a Sakura Matsuri as they would if they were in Japan.

“It was meaningful for J-NET and the Japanese community as a whole to see the Sakura Matsuri come to life because we wanted the Georgetown community to joyously engage in different cultural activities and food that you could come across at a cherry blossom festival in Japan,” Asker wrote to The Hoya.

Co-President Isabela Paredes (SFS ’24) collaborated with Asker and the rest of the J-NET board to closely align the event’s offerings with those of the traditional festival.

“We knew we wanted to show off many different aspects of Japanese culture — from the arts, to games, to, of course, food — so with that as our guide we moved forward with a roster of nine booths,” Paredes wrote to The Hoya.

J-NET’s Sakura Matsuri showcased three different types of booths: traditional arts booths that showcased calligraphy and kimono dressing, traditional games booths with Kingyo Sukui, a game of goldfish scooping, kendama, a wooden stick and ball game, and chopstick competitions, and, lastly, food and drink booths offering shaved ice, Japanese seafood snack takoyaki and tea.

Michelle Long (MSB ’25), a J-NET marketing chair, said it was very important to portray the festival as authentically as possible throughout the event.

“Planning for the event spanned over two months since we really wanted everything to go smoothly,” Long wrote The Hoya. “We placed a lot of emphasis on accuracy, where many of our booths were discussed and drawn from our Japanese board members’ experiences.”

Asker, Paredes and other board members also collaborated with other campus affinity groups in planning the Sakura Matsuri celebration. Georgetown Vibe_, a K-pop performance ensemble, performed a dance routine at the festival and the Center for Student Engagement, an on-campus hub for supporting student extracurriculars, helped broadcast the event to the university community.

Tomo Nozaki (CAS ’26), a J-NET first-year representative, said events like Sakura Matsuri foster collaboration among different university affinity groups and strengthen sentiments of community unity on campus. 

“Everything started with the mind of wanting to host an event where the community could both learn and collaborate,” Nozaki wrote to The Hoya. “Reflecting on past events, led us to conclude that having the community interact with traditional and modern Japanese activities, will allow us to connect with them and appreciate Japan. Looking back at the actual event, I believe we were able to do just that.”

Looking ahead, J-NET plans to build off the success of Sakura Matsuri to introduce further elements of Japanese culture to the Georgetown community, Asker said. They hope to invite a traditional taiko group, or percussion performance ensemble, to perform, and arrange a tour of the Embassy of Japan so students can learn more about current affairs between the United States and Japan. 

Asker said J-NET also wants to bolster its offerings of interactive activities on campus.

“We are also looking to host an Undōkai (Sports Day) where two teams, team red and team white, will compete against one another in various competitions, such as tug-of-war, a three-legged race, and a race in which participants must use their teeth to grab a plastic bag with a Japanese pastry in it,” Asker wrote.

Long said the realization of Sakura Matsuri this year was meaningful to her because it provided more visibility for Japanese students on campus and increased appreciation for Japanese culture.

“With the Japanese population rather small on campus, it is equally important that J-Net gives representation to the culture of Japan,” Long wrote. “The Sakura Matsuri helped spread Japanese foods, tea, and games to the student body. As long as we can give meaningful representation to the Japanese students on campus, we are happy to continue working hard to create events such as the Sakura Matsuri.”