CONTRIBUTED PHOTO The Karen (Kayin) people’s new year will be honored in a celebration held Sunday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Midnight Ballroom in Marshalltown. Free and open to the public, a variety of ethnic foods, dance, music and traditions of Burma will be featured.

With hundreds of people residing in Marshalltown who once called Burma home, the people of the Karen culture have decided to host a New Year’s Day cultural celebration, Sunday, beginning at 10 a.m. at the Midnight Ballroom.

The celebration will mark the Karen, or Kayin people’s Kayin New Year for the 2756 Kayin era. It is traditionally honored on the first day of the month of Pyathoe, which marks the completion of the rice harvest.

Jayden Kawthaw Moo, who does some translating work for Marshalltown EMBARC (Ethnic Minorities of Burma Advocacy and Resource Center), said the celebration is very important to the local Karen people, such as his father Nyein Pay, who has lived in Marshalltown the last six years and is the coordinator of the festivities.

“The Karen New Year has been celebrated in Burma since 1938, but when it was a British colony, they weren’t allowed to fully celebrate,” Moo said.

The Kayin New Year became a public holiday in Burma in 2009, with the traditions kept alive in Karen-inhabited villages and refugee camps.

The organizers of the event plan to offer traditional foods such as rice and noodle dishes, music and activities including a dance competition, poetry reading, the use of bamboo and playing of native instruments. Traditional outfits will also be worn. Karen people from across the state are expected to attend. The celebration is free of charge, and open to the public. Translators will be on hand to help articulate information from Karen into English.

“We do this so the younger generations remember the clothes and the culture,” Moo said. “It’s a good way to bring ethnic minorities of Burma together for networking, and to show others how we celebrate.”

EMBARC Marshalltown is located at 705 S. Center Street in Marshalltown in the YMCA Cultural Center (Old Y building). To learn more about its programs and services, call 641-352-5062.