By Evelyn Lam
Staff Writer
While flipping through the old family photo album, I’m reminded of forgotten versions of myself. I stop at a photo of a girl in kindergarten, rocking bangs and a red-gold Cheongsam, a traditional Chinese dress. Now as a highschooler, celebrations look more like taking bites of “Nian Gao” and accepting red envelopes while simultaneously doing homework.
Primarily celebrated in East and Southeast Asian cultures, Lunar New Year marks the start of a new year on the lunar calendar. In countries that observe the holiday, students and workers typically get multiple days off. Considering that our school has a 64% Asian population, one would expect there to be recognition for the holiday, but this is not the case. Initially, the school district designated Wednesday, Jan. 29 as a student-free day. Due to school closures during the Eaton fire, students ended up attending school on Lunar New Year to make up for days lost.
While no one could have anticipated the disaster, the sudden changes emphasize the need for celebrating Lunar New Year officially and permanently. In other cities, it’s actually common for districts to designate their own days off to reflect the student demographic.
Glendale Unified School District, which has more than a 40% Armenian ethnic makeup, observes Armenian Genocide Rememberance Day by closing schools on April 24. Similarly, Montebello High School designates March 31 as a non-instructional day in honor of Cesar Chavez Day.
This makes sense; holidays are about a community—its history, values and collective experiences. It’s only reasonable for calendars to reflect the community. In our district, Lunar New Year is arguably equally if not more celebrated than holidays like Thanksgiving. But while the district gives us a full week for Thanksgiving, they designate Jan. 29 as a “Non-Student Day” instead of recognizing it as Lunar New Year. So when the wildfires happened, the day was more disposable than it would have been as an actual holiday.
It’s critical to give students and staff a chance to connect with their family and culture. This is not to say that just because Asians hold the ethnic majority in the district that we automatically should be entitled to our holiday. The subset of community members that may observe less celebrated holidays shouldn’t be ignored for the sake of the majority.
However, given the limit on the number of non-instructional days we can implement, the best choice is to select the holidays that will encompass the most people. Schools should designate holidays based on the context and makeup of each school district. For us, it’s most logical to have Lunar New Year for the 60% Asian population and Cesar Chavez Day to reflect the 20% Hispanic population. For other schools, it may be most logical to have days off for Diwali or Jewish High Holy Days.
Furthermore, celebrating one holiday doesn’t have to take away from honoring another one. It’s standard for most institutions and school districts like Arcadia to celebrate only one Presidents’ Day instead of two. We could easily move one of these days off to celebrate Lunar New Year while still honoring our nation’s history.
This year, New York officially celebrated Lunar New Year, making them the first state to implement school closures for the holiday.
“Recognizing Lunar New Year as a statewide holiday is sending a message that Asian Americans are New Yorkers, and that we belong here,” New York Assembly Member Grace Lee said. “I think it’s also a recognition for the many contributions that Asian Americans have made to New York’s history.”
Like New York City, the San Gabriel Valley is a community built largely by immigrants and racial minorities, including Asians. It’s insane to think that our city, initially restricted to include only “white people of a desirable class,” is now a hub of multiculturalism. As our community continues to evolve, we must adapt with it, appreciating the contributions of all our residents by celebrating their backgrounds. That begins with acknowledging our customs.