Cultural Recognition Campaign: Proposal
By: Inho Kee, Ian Kim
Before you read this article please read this article. Thank you
Last week, we found that the biggest holiday in the Asian community is not recognized by NVOT and NVD.
Last Thursday, we met with John M. Kramer, the mayor of Old Tappan, to discuss what we should do to get the lunar new year recognized. Mr. Kramer advised us that we should bring this issue to the Board of Education, and find a way to show the board that this is an issue that many people care about.
After further research and getting our petition signed by more than 250 students in NVOT and NVD, we wrote a proposal to the Board of Education. Read our proposal below.
Old Tappan, New Jersey
14th of October, 2022
Dear Board of Education,
Hello, our names are Ian Kim and Inho Kee. We are the leaders of the Cultural Recognition Campaign, a campaign dedicated to getting a fair representation of cultures in our diverse district. We are writing to propose the celebration of the lunar new year in the Northern Valley district. The Northern Valley district has one of the highest Asian demographics among high schools in NJ. Yet, speaking out on behalf of the Asian American community of our district, there is a lack of representation for the Asian American community; our holidays are not recognized. We are aware that having every holiday off from school is both unreasonable and implausible, but we humbly ask that Lunar New Year be celebrated in our district. Lunar New Year is a holiday celebrated by 68% of Asian countries such as China, South Korea, Thailand, Japan, the Philippines, and more. Thus we have decided that Lunar New Year is the most adequate day to be represented. With NVOT having 39.3% minority enrollment and a 30% Asian student population (US News), there is a significant amount of students that would benefit from the addition of this holiday. Similarly, NVD has a 41.3% minority enrollment with a 28.4% Asian student population. In our attempt to understand how our concerns fare in the district itself, we conducted a 1-hour session in school where we went around NVOT, explained the issue, and got students to sign our petition if they agreed that our movement. In merely one hour, we were able to get over 250 students to sign. This petition will be formally set out online and in school in order to show the number of people, students, and staff, that believe in our movement. Our district should take a day off instead of celebrating in school for a myriad of reasons. Most importantly, in our Asian culture, we spend the whole day with our family joining a parade, eating reunion dinner, and more. Not only is the day merely a celebration but it is also a day we honor our ancestors and those who passed away. We do understand that Lunar New Year is recognized by the state and students individually can have an excused absence on that day. Yet, this fact is not known widely to Asian American students. Also, the burden of missing a school day could be significant due to exams. We have talked to the principal of our school and Old Tappan Mayor, John Kramer, and they highly recommended that we should speak at a Board of Education meeting to advocate our movement. We would be grateful if we could get a chance to speak. Putting our concerns and thoughts into a written document failed to encapsulate our passion and our knowledge. It is much harder to express our concerns regarding this matter in writing, so we have prepared a short presentation that we believe will be able to properly express our concerns. We would be most appreciative if we had the opportunity to present at an upcoming Board of Education meeting. Thank you for your time and consideration.
Sincerely,
Ian Kim and Inho Kee, Leaders of the Cultural Recognition Campaign