Ostrich Festival, Chandler, Arizona

While the suburbs boomed, the downtown area of Chandler became more impoverished, and complaints over crime in the downtown area led in 1997 to the ill-fated Chandler Roundup, a joint operation between local police and federal immigration authorities in which 432 illegal immigrants were arrested and deported. However, the racial profiling methods used in the raid caused civil rights violations to local citizens, which led to costly lawsuits and political upheaval.
Chandler is noted for its annual Ostrich Festival. Initially, agriculture was the primary business in Chandler, based on cotton, corn, and alfalfa. During the 1910s, there were ostrich farms in the area, catering to the demand for plumes used in women's hats of the era. This demand ebbed with the increasing popularity of the automobile, but the legacy of the ostrich farms would be commemorated by the Ostrich Festival. The Chandler Center for the Arts, a 1,500-seat regional performing arts venue, is located downtown, and the Arizona Railway Museum is at Tumbleweed Park.