Renee Cho Yeon Kim
Happy New Year, Happy Chinese New Year and Happy Seolnal! Wait, what is Seolnal? If you could answer this question confidently, either you “are” Korean or have a very good Korean friend. Seolnal is Korean’s Lunar New Year, which is usually around late January or February. Koreans celebrate New Year’s coming by gathering with their families, eating a traditional soup called Ddukgook, and sharing words of wisdom with each other. Sul is one of the biggest national holidays in Korea, but it is rarely known to anyone outside of the Korean immigrant community in the United States. Some Korean immigrants, however, still think that Seolnal should earn more recognition in American society.
Just around this year’s Seol season, I read an opinion article written by an educational expert from the local Korean newspaper. I do not remember the exact details, but the author suggested Korean parents not to send their children to school on Seolnal in order to enhance its recognition in the local community. She used an example of how some public schools are now closing on Jewish holidays such as Rosh Hashanah and Yum Kippur in New York City and Los Angeles. She further explicated that some of public schools in New York City are already excusing Korean students for their absence on Seolnal.
If we looked into the social aspects, this phenomenon is rather simple. Raising recognition of one ethnic group’s culture is excessively crucial in a “melting pot” society like the United States. We often view certain ethnic groups’ political influence to be equivalent to their cultural recognition within society. Then, to what extent should we allow minority groups to exercise and celebrate their holidays? Is it fair closing schools for Jewish holidays but not for Chinese holidays? Then what about Puerto Rican’s Natalicio de José de Diego or Pakistani’s Eid-e-Milad-un-Nabi? What kind of problems would emerge if we decided to only recognize the official holidays of America? For my IDC project, I would like to address and discuss about different ethnic immigrant groups’ efforts to earn cultural recognition and expand their political influence in America by promoting their own national holidays.
