Christmasrapping: The Minority Experience

The Minority Experience

With the variety of traditions we have coming from different groups that live here, we are fortunate to have had a rich culture in America from the start. At first glance the multi-cultural plan to bring observances from society's margins into the main cultural arena seems entirely positive. I think of people who don't celebrate Christmas as being "observance minorities".

The opinion that these individuals could actually feel oppressed by a majority observance like Christmas (that they should never have to experience this oppression) has led to this promotion of minority observances in the public arena, so that no one is marginalized, everyone's included. But in fact, these minority holidays are not adversely affected by Christmas.

Christmas has boosted them or was an inspiration for them. Christmas is just being itself. Every holiday has it's own dynamic in a society.They don't all have the same role or function in their subcultures or in the larger public setting. It's a mistake to think they must compete for visibility with Christmas. We've seen that their aggrandizement doesn't intensify them.

When Christmas is the winter holiday prototype, other holidays, through imitation, end up less, not more like themselves. The preoccupation with subjugating a dominant observance like Christmas, isn't positive. It seems to be a relentless quest for it's own sake. It doesn't seem to matter whether the end results of this quest add anything to society or not. The "cultural sensitivity" that is so central to holidayization doesn't stop with December, but continues year 'round and often seems to serve no purpose.

It's not unusual for these fruitless sensitivities to influence what children experience, or don't experience, in public schools. In Santa Clara, California, a public elementary school juggles the scheduling of vacations from year to year to make sure Easter doesn't get included as part of time off from school. Officials already call this "Spring Break".

There's no law requiring schools to change names of vacations called by specific holidays. Nevertheless instead of vacations with a holiday reference, we now have "breaks" named after seasons. This juggling is an extra precaution to make sure the vacation at this school will never be called "Easter Vacation". At an October neighborhood meeting in Oakland, California, I asked an elementary school principal what Halloween activities were planned for the children. He answered "Many of our students come from Southeast Asian countries. They don't have Halloween over there so we're not doing anything for it."

This implies that children who aren't acculturated with American traditions are better left uninstructed and uninitiated, either because this knowledge would run contrary to their heritage and be an infringement, or isn't relevant to them. It can also be used as a rationalization for not putting any effort into the educational undertaking. It's natural for the overzealous multi-culturalist to think like this. It means there are no American folkways because they might offend someone who may come from a background with other folkways.
There can be no purpose to this kind of cultural sensitivity except to further the cause of remaking the country into a land without culture. It doesn't diversify, it nullifies. Halloween is starting to mirror the Christmas predicament and provides a commentary on religion's role in holidayization. Again we hear outcries form Christians, this time fundamentalists, that Halloween is the devil's playground and should be banned. But others, multi-culturalists, attracted by it's size and high visibility, have also made it their latest subject to be downsized for the sake of diversity and inclusion. The recommendation is now to view Halloween as one of a plurality of observances that are all crowded together in October. We've seen the idea take form in December that if a holiday is considered too dominant, it mustn't stand alone, but must be augmented by other supposedly equivalent holidays and be partaken as a kind of melange. Whereas December was regarded as a kind of vortex attracting holidays with certain themes in common, like candles and gift bearing, October is now viewed as a magnet attracting holidays with a death and spirits theme in common. A search for observances didn't have to go very far because Mexico's Los Dias de los Muertos comes soon after Halloween. This November holiday should be encouraged wherever there are communities of Mexican extraction . But one holiday isn't enough. Two other holidays are being moved from further away to join Halloween, Obon from Japan, and Pchum Ben from Cambodia.These observances occur in August and September. Added together all these holidays represent four months, or one third of the calendar. Transplanting a summer holiday into the later part of fall would seem weird if it was a holiday I was used to celebrating. But disregarding and compressing calendars isn't weird for multi-culturalists. August's Obon and September's Pchum Ben could always be promoted as public observances and left to their own devices in their slots on the calendar, but there they wouldn't be much appreciated by the general public or attract much attention. Halloween on the other hand, has a long history of high visibility in America and people are primed for something dark and other-worldly in October. Other less known observances can take advantage of Halloween when they are brought into Halloween's ready spotlight. As with Christmas and it's entourage, Halloween provides the setting and inspiration for minority observances to be promoted in the public arena and to be less on the margins. Halloween is expected to share it's spotlight chivalrously even though it stands to gain nothing, and to lose considerably. As with Christmas, multi-culturalists work on Halloween takes on striking form in public schools. "Arts Edge - National Arts and Education Network" has a slogan for October, "Not Just Halloween". It and "Marco Polo Educational Foundation" advocate using festivals of the dead as a framework for discussing with students how observances concerning the afterlife are manifested around the world. Instead of children experiencing the simple joy of a Halloween parade they are expected to compare and contrast Halloween with other observances with which Halloween shares only the death motif, only one of Halloween's many facets. Children are missing out on exposure to an important part of American cultural history because Halloween, even more than Christmas, has attained an unparalleled flowering in America. Writer Ray Bradbury's multi-cultural "The Halloween Tree" (the 1992 animated TV special) is a story of a boy's dream of travel through time and around the world where he observes half a dozen observances that are supposed to shed light on the origins and meaning of Halloween. Viewers are presented confusing messages about Halloween, such as "Every day is Halloween in ancient Egypt" and "Mexican Halloweens are better than ours". The story ends with the statement "One place or another, the celebrations are all the same". As we've seen with Hanukkah's "Jewish Christmas", calling The Day of the Dead a "Mexican Halloween" can only lead to the falsification of that holiday. There's no question that holidays hybridize when people immigrate. Halloween got it's pumpkin that way. I can't imagine how turnips were carved out and lit with candles, but history tells us that's what Europeans used before they found a better vegetable in America. What we need to do now is pause before we go about changing holidays so we can ask ourselves if it's really necessary, are the reasons sound, and what kinds of changes will bring about improvements (like a better jack-o-lantern) and what changes will make holidays like Halloween less distinct and less like Halloween. Grouping holidays implies that the observances in these groups have so much in common when they really don't. Halloween and The Day of the Dead share a common theme but their interpretations, attitudes and variations on the theme are different enough to contradict each other if mixed together. In Mexican towns that border the U.S. when Jack-o-lanterns and black cats show up in cemeteries for The Day of the Dead, it is pronounced by some to be cultural pollution. This is understandable. With October and Halloween, some may feel that if one holiday is good, adding more to the same month means we get more of all the good things holidays have to offer, and we can only become more enriched, enlightened and sophisticated as a result. But I think of my holidays as unfathomably deep, complex and rich. None of them need other holidays to be complete. I think holidays are best when appreciated as more or less autonomous and when given their own breathing room. Multi-culturalism has a penchant for blurring the focus and dulling the potency of observances it hopes to promote by insisting they compete with each other. More recently there have been TV cartoons that present Halloween settings but no reference to the holiday specifically. Instead, vague pseudonyms are used like "Spooky Ooky Day", "Ghost Day","Goblin Night" or "Fright Night". Less marked than in December, this nevertheless indicates a carry over in thinking that showing images or themes from a popular holiday is permissible, but naming it can be seen as an infringement on an individual's freedom to name their own observance. Naming is endorsing. Naming risks marginalizing. There are signs that these death themed holidays are being given more of the spotlight than Halloween in other educational establishments. The Oakland Museum specialized in all things Californian. For twelve years a "Days of the Dead Altars" exhibition has been installed along with a calendar of performances and event. This year it spans from October 12th to December 4th and is titled "Altars Remixed". I notice a cross-cultural dance performance "Ghost Memories" is to be performed, inspired by Dias de los Muertos and Obon. No mention of Halloween being mixed into the melange occurs in the cultural calendar. If I were to ask at the museum why Halloween's role in California history and culture wasn't included, they might wonder why anyone would think such a thing would be enriching or enlightening. Yet I can't help thinking the writing is on the wall. A couple of decades ago, who would have imagined the restrictions that are placed on Christmas now. In view of this early stage of multi-cultural meddling with Halloween, I now appreciate how gradually the chiseling away at Christmas occurred over so many years, slowly enough that most people didn't question the restrictions and censoring at any phase of the process. Now we're paying for how we took Christmas for granted. It's interesting to notice how the minority holidays that are being promoted in October are more serious and definitely more religious than Halloween. The spirits that are welcomed and the afterlife aren't make believe.The religious aspects are respected as they should be, including Spanish Catholicism. Nobody tries to censor them. Imagine how different December would be if the Christianity of Christmas were given the same respect and room. Under multi-cultural law, the majority observances that have been the country's seasonal and cultural mainstay since it's earliest days aren't given the same consideration or freedom of _expression. Halloween is generally regarded as secular diversion that's just for fun and excludes no one. That it's nevertheless become enmeshed by multi-culturalists is proof that holidayization isn't necessarily about problems people imagine exist with Christianity in the public arena. It's hard to imagine Halloween will be effected by such extreme downsizing measures as Christmas has been. Merchants have no reason to imagine costume sales will decrease if the name "Halloween" is used in signs and slogans, unless the Jewish spring holiday, Purim, involving costumes, is moved to October and the costumes turned spooky. This would be a typical multi-cultural move. As it stands now, the important Jewish holiday season occurs in October but bear no similarity to the death image-filled observances, and would be incongruent in a competition with them, and Halloween is too secular and lightweight to be perceived a threat.
I don't believe that most people who don't celebrate Christmas resent being "observance minorities". I don't think they are overwhelmed by the knowledge that others don't always believe or celebrate as they do. Observing a distinct observance apart from the majority can be seen as having it's advantages. It shouldn't be cause for feelings of guilt or embarrassment by the majority. As a member of a minority group myself, I would have to be insecure about my own identity to expect my sub-cultural experience to be portrayed in advertisements, slogans, movies, and songs (the language and culture of the mainstream) to the same degree as the majority. It would be unrealistic to expect what is always going on in the public arena to always be about me. Minorities should lead lives free of prejudice and bigotry and with rights and opportunities equal to those of the majority, but not regarded with condescension or humored with unrealistic expectations that all communities and observances are going to be equally visible in the mainstream. We can respect each other for our differences and our ability to grasp how everyone figures into the cultural mix of the country. Holidayization will subside when the fascination for viewing America as a multi-culture is no longer a novelty. The quest to fill December with many holidays will be considered less fruitful than was touted because the other holidays won't occupy a visible place in the public arena. Changing demographics is declared to be a reason for holidayization. In California, holidayization is as pronounced as anywhere or possibly more so. All projections point to people from south of the border becoming the majority here in half a century or less. People from Hispanic countries are predominantly Christian. In Mexico the celebration of Christmas takes place on a grand scale. As we move further into this century and the Latin American population grows to become the majority rather than a minority, my prediction is that some hard core proponents of holidayization won't back down. This is because holidayization isn't really about demography. Demography is used opportunistically when it can be made to appear to support the multi-cultural ideology. When it's clear more than ever that demographics spell "Christmas", these demographics will be ignored because they don't support the ideals. Holidayization will fall out of favor when enough people notice the gruel that holidayization serves each year is too bland and thin, and when enough people speak out about enjoying Christmas.
Christmas isn't just one holiday. It's celebrated with many different customs depending upon what cultural group is observing it. In spite of it's pluralism, under holidayization's dictum, Christmas is regarded as the singular and dominant. 2007 marks a major change for Christmas and the Mexican community with two major public events celebrating Mexican style Christmas, one a free program in downtown Oakland's City Center, and the other a program in Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco, both featuring mariachi bands. Another outgrowth of multiculturalism is the addition of a Mexican Christmas tradition, "La Posada" (The Inn) to the line up of public activities offered at Oakland's Jack London Square by the merchant's association. This is a re-enactment of Mary and Joseph's journey looking for a place to stay. Participants go from one establishment to the next carrying a doll that represents Jesus. When they reach a destination that has been prearranged, it is asked if there is room at the inn. The group is invited inside and Christmas carols are sung and refreshments offered by the host. This event is described on the association's flyer and web site avoiding the word "Christmas". In fact "the C word" doesn't appear anywhere among all the events listed for December at Jack London Square. By calling La Posada a "holiday procession" the merchants' association is attempting the impossible and absurd, to excise Christmas from the nativity, the very event that gave Christmas it's name. As a new Christmas event for this venue, La Posada is presented because it functions under the guidelines of multicultural diversity and inclusion, not because it has anything to do with Christmas. As such it is an aberration, an example of multicultural order turning back on itself. This is inevitable, and an example of how muti-cultural Christmas is, how it is anything but uniform. Whatever holidays are being questioned, I don't think it's realistic to think there isn't going to be a minority experience in this country.