My post reviewing children’s books about Chinese New Year has gotten a lot of traffic. Lots of moms looking for books to use as they go into their child’s classroom for a Lunar New Year presentation have been surfing for ideas. Paper lanterns have been made. Chopsticks have been practiced. And, no doubt, fortune cookies (which are not even from China, mind you) have been eaten.
But, is one school party enough?
A petition titled: “Establish Lunar New Year as a National Holiday. Give it the same importance and weight as the other cultural holidays” was submitted to the White House yesterday with almost 40,000 signatures on it.
The petition read:
Our nation is composed of a wide array of nationalities and cultural background. It is imperative that we as a diverse nation to recognize and acknowledge that diversity. The Asian population represents a large percentage in U.S.’s population and is growing ever more. Students in public schools voluntarily take off from school to spend the Lunar New Year holiday at home with families. Yet, they are marked absent for their in-attendance. Please make this important holiday widely recognized and make it an official day off for students too. The holidays in our calendar year already consists of holidays from different cultures and definitely has room for Lunar New Year too.
Asian-Americans number approximately 17.3 million, comprising about 5.6% of the total U.S. population. In fact, Asian Americans recently passed Hispanics to become the largest group of new immigrants to the United States.
What do you think? Should the most significant Asian holiday of the year be made a U.S. holiday?