Wednesday, January 13, 2010

We Need a New Ethnic Holiday

It's fashionable to take pride in your ethnic background, wherever your ancestors hail from. Part of being in this melting pot has been that we each change the flavor of the stew a bit, to add color and character. Not spicy enough? Add some Mexicans (or Guatemalans, if you want to kick it up a notch). Need more garlic? Some Italians are getting off the boat now! Need to do something will all those extra potatoes? That's what the Jews are here for! And you can tell I'm writing this just before lunch.

Even groups which aren't very "ethnic" anymore (that is, mostly assimilated to the point of not standing out) still have their pride days. Every St. Patrick's day, some totally white guy who discovered that eight generations ago one of his English ancestors got knocked up by a man named O'Reilly will celebrate this fact by drinking green beer and getting into drunken fistfights (though actual Irish people don't really celebrate this). In fact, the only group of people who have to be wary of over-celebrating their ethnic pride are the Germans, and that's because last time they got too excited about their heritage they ended up invading half of Europe.

However, the month of January seems to lack any real ethnic holiday. Sure, we have MLK Day on Monday, but that's more to honor a single person rather than an ethnic group (Black History Month isn't until the following month). That's more of a solemn holiday, anyway. After all, you don't see white guys who claim a tiny portion of black ancestry going out and getting plastered on MLK Day.

Any suggestions for a left-out ethnic group that could use a January holiday? The requirements are as follows:

1) The group cannot already have a recognized celebratory holiday. This leaves out the Irish (St. Pats), Mexicans (Cinco de Mayo), the Italians (Columbus Day), and the Tree People (Arbor Day).

2) The group must have delicious food. Sorry, Russians!

3) The holiday cannot involve suffering and depriving yourself. Sorry, Jews!

Any takers?

No comments:

Post a Comment