It's not unusual for these 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" by anyone.

 

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 they think American folkways are trouble because they might exclude or offend someone who may come from a background with other folkways. They feel that labeling an observance runs the risk of excluding someone, so they'd rather see a "Harvest Festival" than a "Halloween" parade or party. 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. << back | continued >>