JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 The annual World of Nations festival drew vendors, performers and visitors to downtown Jacksonville for a weekend of food, music and cultural displays.<\/p>\n
More than 30 countries were represented, with booths offering national dishes, crafts and traditional clothing. <\/p>\n
The final day of the event included family activities aimed at showcasing cultural traditions and performances on the mainstage Sunday, including Palestine, the Republic of Panama, Trinidad and Tobago, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. <\/p>\n
World of Nations celebration 2026 (Ben Schubert\/News4JAX photojournalist)<\/p>\n
\u201cMexico traditionally is known for a lot of color,\u201d said Ulysses Hernandez, one of the Mexico tent vendors. \u201cAnywhere you go in the city, or even if you go to pueblos, everything is about color, the festivals, the traditions, even the parties, the weddings.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vendors sold foods ranging from street-style sweets to prepared meals made from scratch. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhen [people] come, they try the culture,\u201d Cameroon vendor Kate Fon said. \u201cThey\u2019ve heard so much about it online, and seeing in real life, in person, is amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Attendees included first-time visitors and long-time residents who said they appreciated the range of offerings. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m retired military, so I\u2019ve traveled a while, but yeah, I really like this,\u201d said Georgia resident Charlotte Bell.<\/p>\n
World of Nations celebration 2026 (Ben Schubert\/News4JAX photojournalist)<\/p>\n
Vendors said they were grateful to be part of the diverse community throughout the weekend.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to first of all thank the city of Jacksonville for doing this for us,\u201d said Cameroon vendor Leo Ngoune. \u201cWe\u2019re so happy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 The annual World of Nations festival drew vendors, performers and visitors to downtown Jacksonville for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":174224,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[502,2318,1039,116,118,117,70848],"class_list":["post-174223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-community","tag-downtown","tag-duval-county","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-world-of-nations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174223"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174223\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/174224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}