NEW YORK (NewsNation Now) — A New York state assembly member believes the Lunar New Year should be a federal holiday because celebrating the day would acknowledge “that Asian-Americans are also Americans.”
“I think that right now, our country is having a huge recognition that anti-Asian hate is very real, and that there’s a lot of hurt and there’s a lot of violence that we’ve seen in New York, nationwide, and it’s hurtful to see that there are people who don’t feel like Asian Americans belong here and celebrating is a way to be able to say that,” Yuh-Line Niou, a New York State Assembly member, said on “Dan Abrams Live.”
Schools in New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, suburban DC and more canceled class Tuesday in honor of the Lunar New Year. The holiday is considered very significant in many Asian cultures.
Now, there are even bills in Congress looking to add Lunar New Year and Diwali, the Indian festival, to the existing list of 11 federal holidays.
“I think that it’s really important for us to actually embrace all the different cultures that actually are a part of us,” Niou said.
Niou said there will be 35 million Asian-Americans in the country by 2060.
“I think that if we are seen as real Americans, and if we are acknowledging that we belong here, then we need to make sure that we celebrate the one holiday that actually represents us, and that’s our new year,” Niou said.
She also argues that it is an educational opportunity.
Abrams argued that adding the holiday is a slippery slope.
“They shouldn’t be giving every kid the day off for holidays that they don’t celebrate,” Abrams said. “It’s disruptive to learning and for parents. Wouldn’t things be easier for everyone if students who need the day off are just able to take it off without penalty?”
In response to that, Niou said that kids today have longer school years than they did in previous generations.
“I think that in New York, actually, three weeks have been actually added to the school year over the decades,” Niou said. “So kids are actually in school more today than they have ever been.”