Raymundo Guzmán, also known as MixteKo, is an artist based in the San Joaquin Valley of California.

George Abe is an energetic, enigmatic man. A Japanese American born and raised in California, he presented and performed as part of the Sounds of California program.

As Smithsonian Folkways artists, Chicano rock band Quetzal has appeared at the Folklife Festival multiple times, this year representing the Sounds of California.

Beyond the 2016 Folklife Festival, Sounds of California is part of a collaborative project with the Alliance for California Traditional Arts and Radio Bilingüe.

The process of writing a song has always seemed daunting to me. Especially at the Folklife Festival, surrounded by wildly talented musicians steeped in generations of tradition and bursting with innovative ideas, I can’t even imagine how to begin.

Environmentalists, activists, educators—the Arrow-weeds are a force. They protect the sacred sites and desert ecosystem of their ancestral lands, the lower Colorado River region, through successfully protesting the creation of mines and turbines.

I was in high school when the HBO premiered the series Brave New Voices (2009). I remember being in awe of the force behind the voices of teenagers collectively sharing their stories through spoken word, across the cities spotlighted on the show.

Many ancient cultures tell tales of why the sun shines during the day and the moon at night. In some stories the sun and the moon are siblings, in others they are lovers.

Rhythm is not inherently musical, as Benjamin Earl Turner demonstrates in “Diatribe of a Shepard’s Son.” The ebb and flow of Ben’s poetry guides the audience along the journey of his verse, and challenges the perception of the norm.

Throughout the Folklife Festival, the sounds of upbeat banda music and the cracks of whips wafted through the air.