Heritage months not widely celebrated, recognized

Everyone is a little bit racist —and some more than others.

Now that we got the hard part over with, let’s about various heritage months celebrated in the United States with open minds. For the sake of keeping things relatively simple, we will classify a heritage month as those that have been proclaimed by a U.S. president, and that the history portion of each is geared more toward its history in the United States.

It is February, which is Black History Month. It is arguably the most celebrated among the other heritage months. November was Native American Heritage month and mid-September through mid-October was Hispanic Heritage Month.

However, there are many other heritage months proclaimed by a U.S. president that are less known. March is Irish-American Heritage Month. May is Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month, Jewish-American Heritage Month and Haitian Heritage Month. June is Caribbean-American Heritage Month. October is Italian-American Heritage Month and Polish-American Heritage Month.

Some may ask, when is White History Month? This is blasphemy, reverse-racism, blah blah blah. The way I see it, although it’s not official or proclaimed by the president, “White” history month is every month. History taught in public schools is history seen and interpreted from the American point of view.

So-called world history in American schools consists mostly of American history, European history, a touch of eastern Asia and conquistadors in Latin America, all from an American or western point of view.

And yes, the various heritage months are not represented equally and are not celebrated in the same capacity. I did not even know about the Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month (consisting of Asians and Pacific Islanders) until I did a little research, being a curious Asian-American myself. There are also many white sub-groups like the Slavs and other Western European groups that are not represented as well. And when was the last time there was an event for Caribbean-American Month? I’ve never heard of that before, either.

That being said, is it really fair to restrict and condense the history and heritage of one race or ethnicity into just a month? What’s the point? Black History Month is turning into a broken record of hero-worship, learning about Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X and Rosa Parks. Black history in the United States is also not just “black history” but it is also part of American history.

What really needs to be done is to integrate different yet relevant cultural heritage and perspectives into history classes taught in public schools. Teach about Christopher Columbus, not only how he luckily landed in the Americas, but also about how the Native Americans felt about him then and now. Teach about the Pacific front of World War II from the various Asian perspectives, not only the American.

So in the similar degree of corniness and idea of “make every day an Earth Day,” I think that the heritage months are counter-intuitive and should be integrated into everyday history classes instead.

Advocate Staff