Chinese Lunar New Year is not only celebrated in China. On Chinese New Year’s Eve, the Chinese supermarket near downtown Washington, D.C. looked like a smaller Times Square on December 31st. The dumpling vendor by the entrance had sold out as customers flocked in to buy bright red paper with gold embossed couplets to adorn their doorways and hongbao to give relatives and friends’ children gifts of cash. Flyers and announcements for Chinese New Year events covered the pillars outside of the store. The festive atmosphere was almost the same as in China.

 

Chinese Lunar New Year, along with other Chinese traditions, was brought to the United States by Chinese immigrants. In 1785, the arrival of three Chinese seamen in Baltimore marks the first record of Chinese in the U.S.

 

Just over a half a century later, Chinese began immigrating to the West Coast in large numbers, pursuing the promise of the California Gold Rush. By the 1880s, more than 300,000 Chinese laborers had migrated to the United States. These early Chinese immigrants faced tremendous difficulties in their daily lives, exacerbated by the discriminatory laws of their host country: from 1882 until 1943, the U.S. imposed laws to exclude further immigration by Chinese laborers to the U.S. According to Wei Li, a professor who focuses Asian Americans in Arizona State University, racial ideology, in addition to economic competition, triggered the animosity against the Chinese.

 

The early Chinese immigrants tried to adjust to their new world without losing their “Chineseness,” a process that entailed bringing their cultural roots across the Pacific. Once Chinese traditional culture had been ‘transplanted’ to a new soil, it grew in different ways. For instance, Li noted that in Arizon, many U.S.-born later generation Chinese still practice the traditional wedding ceremonies practiced by their first generation ancestors from Imperial China. When mainland Chinese came to Arizona to visit their relatives, Li explained, they were shocked to see wedding ceremonies from “centuries ago” that had long since been phased out on the Mainland.

 

These progeny of immigrants’ love for Chinese traditional culture is not superficial. In recent years, Chinese language schools have sprung up and flourished throughout the United States. The Cambridge Chinese School in Boston, for example, has evolved from its meager origin as a seven student after class in 1991 to a regular educational institution with a dozen teachers and one thousand students. It currently offers after-school  and weekend classes, as well as summer program. Many Chinese parents take their children to learn Chinese at the Cambridge Chinese School in order to keep their roots alive.

 

These Chinese schools not only provide Chinese language learning, but also bring together and strengthen the bond of Chinese communities. They give non-English-speaking seniors a chance to make friends, provide lectures on U.S. laws and regulations to new immigrants, and take the American-born-Chinese to China to learn more about their ancestors’ homeland.

 

During this past Chinese Lunar New Year, tens of thousands of Chinese Americans petitioned the White House to make Chinese Lunar New Year a U.S. national holiday. The petition was posted to “We the People,” a White House website that allows citizens to directly petition the executive branch. The statement reads “Our nation is composed of a wide array of nationalities and cultural backgrounds. It is imperative that we as a diverse nation to recognize and acknowledge that diversity. The Asian population represents a large percentage in U.S.'s population and is growing ever more.” Wenshan Jia, Director of Asian Studies Program in Chapman University and one of the 39,000 current signatories, is optimistic about the outcome. He said that the Obama administration represents pluralism and diversity, and recognizing Chinese Lunar New Year as a national holiday will help further the development of China-US relations.

 

Still, many American scholars admit that most Americans remain widely ignorant about China and its culture, except for university students and residents of larger cities with a greater population of Asian immigrants. While a mall in Washington, D.C. decorated the lobby with Spring Festival couplets, none of the mall staff were aware of the couplets’ meaning.

 

Eugene Cooper, a professor of anthropology at University of Southern California (USC), said that he believes Americans respect China and Chinese culture, but are not ready to include Chinese Lunar New Year as a U.S. national holiday. At his university, this does not matter though—Chinese students at USC can ask for leave on Chinese Lunar New year, and there are many events on campus during the festival.

 

USC is certainly not the only school to recognize Chinese New Year with events, even if it is not recognized on the institution’s formal calendar. Celebrations are held at many universities, as well as high schools and elementary schools. Some schools organize visits to China Town and some hold workshops to teach students the basics of Chinese calligraphy and Chinese chess.

 

While in generations past, non-Asian Americans knew very little about China,  this has changed with the China’s economic and geopolitical rise on the global. More and more young Americans want to understand China and are eager to learn about Chinese culture.

 

According to a report based on the results of the National K-12 Foreign Language Survey conducted by the Center for Applied Linguistics, Chinese was taught at 3% of elementary schools in 2008 versus 0.3% in 1997, a statistic also reflected in high school course offerings. Hotchkiss School, a private high school located in Lakeville, Connecticut, has about 400 students, nearly 20% of who study Chinese. The school even has a Chinese name: “Hao Ji Si” School.

 

Grade schools are becoming a platform to promote Chinese culture. Still, this alone is not enough to effectively increase widespread interest and understanding of Chinese culture in the U.S. As Wenshan Jia explained, the Confucius Institutes and Chinese media can promote Chinese folk culture through customs such as dragon boat races, dragon lion dances and parades. These events may help further stimulate Americans’ interest in Chinese culture.

 

Wang Anli is a reporter from Chinese Social Sciences Today based in Washington, D.C.

 

The Chinese version appeared in Chinese Social Sciences Today No. 416, Feb. 18, 2013.

 

(Translated by Wang Anli)

Editor：Feng Daimei