For my first time ever donning a full suit, I stepped into a CHCCS Board of Education meeting. Inside the conference room, there were three long tables at the front and a neat array of chairs facing them. In the center was a podium for public comments. Tonight, all of the board members voted in an overwhelming agreement to approve the Lunar New Year calendar addition.
Compared to the rest of the country, our home of Chapel Hill seems special. We are accepting of different cultures and identities. To young people who’ve grown up in Chapel Hill, we’re used to living alongside different identities and cultures. Our own identities are constantly being molded by the people around us. This leads me to wonder: whose hands truly shape our home?
After weeks of coordinating with board members, giving speeches, and writing proposals, on February 17, CHCCS became the first school district in North Carolina to recognize Lunar New Year as a school holiday/teacher workday. This means that, in future school years, every student can spend the Lunar New Year off.
In an email to all CHCCS families and staff on February 4, superintendent Nyah Hamlett wrote, “I could go on about the ways in which our schools are working to move our words and door displays to a genuine culture of care…I was recently contacted by CHCCS high school students who are advocating for greater awareness of the contributions and traditions of Asians and Asian Americans in our community.” She goes on to quote from my proposal: “In CHCCS, Asian students make up 13.9% of the K-12 student body. Being so widely-celebrated all over the world, Lunar New Year is a celebration for all Asian communities and for all Asian people. This includes the 8,000+ Asians in Chapel Hill.”
I couldn’t be prouder to make a difference in our community. As superintendent Hamlett said, Lunar New Year was not just a celebration for one group of people, but also a historical mark in our town’s history: Chapel Hill recognizes the importance of being open to everybody. That includes me, you and everyone and everything else we each bring to our home.
Our willingness to be open is what predominantly defines our future. We often borrow or adapt useful ideas or practices into our daily lives from foreign cultures. After all, culture is not simply one entity; each individual has their own take on their identity. We are the ones who absorb new information by engaging with different experiences to develop our cultural proficiency. In the end, it’s our hands that shape our home.
This is why Chapel Hill is so warm and inclusive to differences. For our community, Lunar New Year is an opportunity for people to become revitalized, especially from the dreary days of the pandemic. At home, Asian families celebrated by eating extravagant dinners and FaceTiming grandparents on the other side of the world. Before COVID-19 hit in 2020, cultural festivals like the 2019 Light-Up Festival down Franklin Street and Global Connection nights at Smith Middle School were met with enthusiasm and huge success.
That’s the spirit of Lunar New Year in the first place—to honor origins and spread happiness. We all have a voice. Deep inside, we all have dreams to make a difference in society. That was the reason I chose to stand up for my AAPI community. My proposal to make it a holiday had the support of my classmates, my teachers, my neighbors, and people I had never met before. While we had different backgrounds, everyone was willing to help. Together, we got it done.
Change is not hard to make if we do it together. It sounds cheesy, but after experiencing it with my own hands, this is truer than ever.
We are the leaders of tomorrow. It’s our time to stand up and make the world we’ve always dreamed of, starting from changing our home right here. Our homes are homes because we make them homes. Differences are what advances our communities. We, as inhabitants of the same community, should hold hands and understand, respect, and enjoy each other’s cultures. We have to be intentional and let our words carry meaning.
Photo courtesy of Teresa Fang.
