‘Mother Language Day’ celebration

To celebrate “International Mother Language Day,” Queens Bangladeshis flocked to Woodside in the late evening of Wednesday, February 20. Organizers estimated that as many as 1,000 people turned out for the official ceremony, which started on 37th Avenue in front of the Dhaka Club at 12:01 a.m. the following morning. At the culmination of the event, participants laid flowers on a towering memorial.
Dancers performed traditional routines, some painting their fingers and feet red to symbolize blood lost more than 50 years earlier.
“In 1952, a lot of our brothers shed their blood for our Bangla movement, for our language,” said Jamaica Estates resident Dilafroz “Nargis” Ahmed, President of the Bangladeshi Society of New York.
At the time, Bangladesh - known as East Pakistan - was ruled by West Pakistan, and the government attempted to install Urdu as the official language. A student protest turned violent when police fired into a rowdy crowd, killing five.
“We didn’t want someone to take away our language, our mother tongue,” Ahmed said, explaining that the country later won its independence in 1971. In 1999, the holiday was established by the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and the anniversary has been celebrated every year since 2000.