Mike Wolanin | The Republic People gather on Washington Street for Ethnic Expo in Columbus, Ind., Friday, Oct. 10, 2025.
Ethnic Expo opened Friday for its 40th year, celebrating the cultures and countries that make Columbus so diverse.
The festival started in 1984, but skipped one year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This year festival features 41 food vendors, 20 market vendors and 26 countries and 14 cultures represented in booths near Columbus City Hall.
More than 30,000 visitors visited Ethnic Expo last year, the largest number since the pandemic, organizers said.
This year, the city wanted to go back to the start of the festival and decided to not have a host country this year.
“We decided to take it back to the very first of the ‘80s when we introduced it to the community and had no host …,” said Jody Coffman, Columbus’ communications and events coordinator. “We just celebrated that big number… Not very many events can say they’ve had 40 years or 40 events.”
Ethnic Expo is the biggest event that the city puts on for the community, Coffman said, who added she is excited to see that the community is coming back and willing to celebrate the cultures and countries.
Not only is the festival promoting the food from all the different countries and cultures in Columbus, they brought in three local authors who have written books in their native languages and will read from them on stage this morning.
“It is a huge and proud moment to see how important it is for the community to come out and celebrate the diversity and cultures that make up our neighbors,” Coffman said. “These are they people that live next door to us, the people that we work with, the people that we go to school with, the people that we have fun with. Everybody comes together every year to celebrate all those things we love that makes Columbus unique.”
Some new food booths this year include representatives from Indonesia, Saint Vincent, Ethiopia and Eritrea.
Arsema Tewolde was operating the Ethiopian food booth with her mother Elizabeth Diro, where they served foods such as injera, Key Wat, Alecha Wat, Key Misir Wat, Alecha Kiki Wat, Ethopian coffee and other traditional Ethiopian foods. The food is typically eaten with your hands.
Being able to represent Ethiopia for the festival was special for Tewolde and Diro.
“My mom cried earlier, she was so happy,” Tewolde said. “There are a lot of things you have to overcome to get here, especially when you’re a family doing this by yourself… We are so proud to represent our country. We don’t get many chances to, especially here. We’re happy to be here.”
Being at the festival and sharing Ethiopian food with people is something that Tewolde enjoyed doing because she did not grow up in Ethiopia.
“It helps me connect to my culture and I’m learning new things as I go along,” she said. “I find that it’s really great for my self-esteem in my background because I can say to myself ‘I know these things and this is my culture.’”
To prepare for the festival, Tewolde and her family had to start cooking last week and kept cooking until the festival started.
For those who have not tried Ethiopian food, Tewolde suggests that they try the Key Wat. The dish is a spicy, bold, and hearty Ethiopian stew that is seasoned with berbere spice blend, featuring slow-simmered meat and is often made with onions, garlic, tomato paste, and clarified butter). It is traditionally served with injera, a spongy flatbread, but can also be eaten with rice or bread.
Terry Burlew has been coming to the Ethnic Expo just about since it started, he said. Over the years, it has not changed much, though he does miss some countries not being represented such as Austria.
What he likes about the festival is that there are people from the country they are representing and are not a commercial restaurant. He said that he can go to a commercial restaurant anytime, he is looking for people of the country they are representing to prepare food at Ethnic Expo.
He is excited to try new foods at the festival. It is something that Burlew does every year and he hopes to see it expand into a bigger event.
“I think it’s extremely important (to have the Ethnic Expo),” Burlew stated. “Columbus is so represented by a multitude of countries. I think it’s fabulous that we are kind of a melting pot for all these cultures.”
