By Alex Robinson
City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito (D-Manhattan) joined Queens elected officials in Flushing last week to renew a call to make Lunar New Year a school holiday.
The initiative was the latest in what has become a yearly push by legislators to give Asian-American students a day off for the celebration, which is considered the most important holiday of the year in many Asian cultures.
“No one should be forced to choose between celebrating a sacred holiday or missing school,” Mark-Viverito told the long list of lawmakers gathered in front of the Queens Library Friday. “Making Lunar New Year a legal holiday would honor the culture of the tens of thousands of Asian Americans who call our city home, and I’m proud to support my colleagues in this effort.”
The Lunar New Year falls on a different day every year as it follows the lunar calendar. This year it starts this Friday, Jan. 31.
More than 14 percent of New York City’s student population in the public school system is Asian American, according to the city Department of Education. In the city, students who miss school due to Lunar New Year celebrations receive an excused absence but still have the absence marked on their record.
“Students of many other cultures and ethnicity rightly have off for the most important holidays they observe, and kids who celebrate Lunar New Year should be afforded the same,” said U.S. Rep. Grace Meng (D-Flushing).
The Council plans to introduce resolutions that would allow schools to close in neighborhoods with large concentrations of Asian students. The new law would also suspend alternate side of the street parking and metered parking for the holiday.
State Assemblyman Ron Kim (D-Flushing) said he would be introducing similar legislation in the state Legislature and Meng introduced a measure in Congress to push for the school holiday in mid-January.
Many lawmakers have attempted to pass such legislation in state and city legislatures in years past and failed. Kim successfully passed his legislation in the Assembly last year, but it was later voted down once it reached the state Senate.
“This year we have to continue to push for the Senate to pass the legislation to respect and acknowledge that our communities are a significant part of our city and state and deserve the same recognition,” Kim said.
Reach reporter Alex Robinson by e-mail at arobinson@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-260-4566.
