My local library showcases books according to ethnic and gender celebrations. This month it’s Arabs and Scots. Last month honored the Irish and Women. You can spend a day googling ‘diversity’ to find out what Americans are celebrating each month. But I’ll save you this arduous chore.
Starting with January, it may have a Black stamp on it because of MLK Day; but with a quick search I found that it is actually Human Trafficking & Stalking Awareness Month—not much to celebrate there unless you’re in a Mexican cartel.
February is Black History Month even though Blacks have two national holidays in other months – January for Martin Luther King Day and June for Juneteenth (June 19th). Essentially, Blacks have three months devoted to them. But don’t forget the Chinese New Year each February, a NYC school holiday.
March, of course, is all about the Irish and raise-a-pint St. Paddy’s Day. But it’s ironic that the same month celebrates Women’s History—a history that includes Prohibition, which women initiated. Not much pint-raising between 1919 and 1933!
April is Arab Heritage Month. Among the books on display at my library was a biography of Pharaoh Ramses II. Wasn’t he the guy who enslaved the Hebrews in Ten Commandments? Shouldn’t he be canceled? Anyway, Arabs had to share shelf space with Scots, a truly amazing people. Pioneers and inventors galore, did you know that Guglielmo Marconi was half Scots-Irish of the Jameson Irish Whiskey family?
On to May, besides Cinco de Mayo we celebrate the Jewish heritage as well as all our Asian folks – east and south types plus Pacific Islanders. (Interesting footnote: the term Desi is used to include all south Asians: Indians, Pakis, Banglas. The word comes from Hindi meaning ‘homeland,’ as in Bangladesh.)
June is for gender-bending: LGBTQIA+ (the + is for any new pleasure combination you can come up with.)
July is Disability Pride Month: “There, but for the grace of God…”
August, according to some websites is Summer Sun Safety Month, National Breastfeeding Month, and National Immunization Awareness Month. This month is a nice catch-all.
Hispanic Heritage Month straddles September and October but Cinco de Mayo (May 5th) gives Latinos an extra month to celebrate. As for taking half of September and October, I can only guess that they want part credit for the Discovery of America (October 12th). In Latin America it is celebrated as El Dia de la Raza – the mixing of European and Indigenous DNA.
Indigenous Peoples Month is celebrated in November, but because Columbus Day (still a federal holiday) has become radioactive, Native Americans* also have the entire month of October to complain about White people and unbury their hatchets. *(from the Italian ‘Amerigo’ Vespucci.)
December, if you can spare the time from Christmas and Hanukah shopping, is the month of “awareness” of such things as AIDS, grief, modern slavery, and animal rights. If you want to raise awareness to your own pet peeves this is the month to do it.
As for our place in this minestrone of celebrations, we get to share October with Hispanics. Our Great Navigator may be on the rocks, but supermarkets will hype our cuisine for a week. We take whatever we can get, nowadays.
Last thought: Would any of this diversity and inclusion have been possible without Christopher Columbus and the handful of Italian explorers who opened the New World? Seems that there is little awareness of this fact. -JLM
That is a major point….among historians, in many ways the Columbus factor did not discover a new world, it created one! It is as simple as that and of course “simpletons” don’t get it because they are dealing with their own trees rather than the forest Its really a myth to talk about the new world in linear fashion as seems to be the case. It is multifaceted ,dynamic, and in many ways unintended, from the mingling of bacteria to the creation of new communities and for better and worst, all that it represents.
Couldn’t have been stated any better!
Grazie Mille!