Diwali is also known as the Festival of Lights.
Arnav/Wikimedia Commons
Words by Samantha Pak
New York City public schools will observe the Diwali holiday, starting next year.
The announcement came Thursday during a press conference with New York City Mayor Eric Adams, state Assemblymember Jenifer Rajkumar, and New York Department of Education Chancellor David Banks.
“The time has come to recognize over 200,000 New Yorkers of the Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh and Jain faiths who celebrate Diwali, the Festival of Lights,” Rajkumar said during the conference. “That is why I stand today with New York City Mayor Eric Adams and our schools Chancellor David Banks to light the way forward to make Diwali, once and for all, a school holiday in the city of New York.”
For two decades, members of New York’s South Asian and Indo-Caribbean communities have been campaigning to get Diwali recognized as a public school holiday. As the one who introduced the legislation to state lawmakers, Rajkumar—New York’s first Hindu American and South Asian American woman elected to state office—acknowledged their efforts and said she stands on the shoulders of those advocates. She explained that they were able to fit Diwali in the school calendar (which requires a minimum of 180 days of instruction) by replacing Anniversary Day, “an obscure and antiquated day created in the 1800s…that is observed by no one,” noting that Diwali is celebrated by a growing number of New Yorkers.
Thank you for the outpouring of support and celebration about my announcement today with @NYCMayor and @DOEChancellor on Diwali becoming a school holiday. For more details, see my press release. #GetStuffDone pic.twitter.com/MoGKwk5Kp4
— Jenifer Rajkumar (@JeniferRajkumar) October 20, 2022
During the conference, Adams said recognizing Diwali as a school holiday not only allows families who observe the holiday to do so without young people missing school, it also serves as an educational moment.
“When we acknowledge Diwali, we are going to encourage the children to learn about, ‘What is Diwali?’” he said. “We’re going to have them start talking about what it is to celebrate the Festival of Lights and ‘How do you turn the light on within yourself?’”
Diwali is a celebration of good over evil—of light over darkness. And Adams is right when he says, “We deal with so much darkness.” A lot of that darkness comes from pitting people and communities against each other. So what better way to push out that darkness than to shine a light on aspects of a community that others might not know about?
“When we talk about the education of New York City students, we have to recognize, the whole world lives here…and they all go to school here,” Banks said during the conference. “And it is important that we honor, and we recognize all of our young people.”
In addition to Diwali, New York City public schools also acknowledge Lunar New Year, Eid al-Fitr, Passover, and Juneteenth—holidays celebrated and observed by their students. It’s a step in the right direction for one of the country’s most diverse cities, and let’s hope other cities will follow suit.
Published on October 24, 2022
Words by Samantha Pak
Samantha Pak (she/her) is an award-winning Cambodian American journalist from the Seattle area and assistant editor for JoySauce. She spends more time than she’ll admit shopping for books than actually reading them, and has made it her mission to show others how amazing Southeast Asian people are. Follow her on Twitter at @iam_sammi and on Instagram at @sammi.pak.