It’s not just a war on Christmas anymore. At Bruce Vento Elementary School in St. Paul, the casualties also include Valentine’s Day, Halloween and Thanksgiving.

School Principal Scott Masini sent a letter to parents announcing that the school would no longer celebrate the four “dominant” holidays “until we can come to a better understanding of how the dominant view will suppress someone else’s view.”

The student population at Bruce Vento school is mostly non-white. The student body is 52 percent Asian or Pacific Islander, 35 percent black, 7 percent Hispanic, 4 percent white and 1 percent Indian. No doubt there are many non-Christian students who don’t celebrate Christmas. St. Valentine’s Day has lost most of its religious significance with its modern emphasis on love and romance. It is perhaps a little too racy for young kids

But Halloween and Thanksgiving? Halloween has become a giant costumed “gimme candy” fest that kids everywhere enjoy. And Thanksgiving is, after all, a national holiday. Why shouldn’t school children learn about the history of the earliest settlements in this country?

If this principal wants to be more inclusive, he could let students celebrate more holidays from different cultures, not deny those that America celebrates. Celebrate Chinese New Year, or the Tet (Vietnamese New Year). Celebrate Cinco de Mayo and Syttende Mai. Let all the students learn what holidays their classmates celebrate, and why. Let them sample the foods, costumes and traditions of other cultures. Maybe they will learn to appreciate and enjoy each other. And that is what the school wants, isn’t it?

 

— The Journal of New Ulm, Jan. 29