Second Letter to Fremont CA School on Chinese New Year

Dear Principal *****,

Thank you for your prompt and courteous reply. I appreciate your assurance that this matter will be brought to the parent-teacher organization for future consideration.

However, I feel compelled to gently clarify the nature of my concern, as I believe it may have been inadvertently reframed. This is not simply a matter of seeking a “more inclusive” term through administrative compromise. At its core, this is a question of historical accuracy and educational responsibility.

The term “Lunar New Year,” as I noted, carries a specific and documented colonial administrative origin. Its continued use in an educational setting—however well-intentioned—risks normalizing a terminological framework that was originally imposed to diminish cultural sovereignty. To draw a parallel within your own field: we would not teach students about Indigenous American cultures using terminology created by colonial settlers to replace those peoples’ own names for themselves. The pedagogical principle is the same: language born of erasure should not be institutionalized in spaces of learning.

My concern is therefore not about “inclusivity” in the generic sense, but about which historical narrative we choose to endorse through our institutional language. True inclusivity must be built upon historical honesty, not upon the uncritical adoption of historically charged terminology.

I would be pleased to provide the PTO/CIPCF with scholarly references and historical documents that detail the 1968 Hong Kong legislative change and its colonial context. Should it be helpful, I am also willing to participate in a future meeting—not merely as a parent with a preference, but as a stakeholder presenting a historically-grounded case for terminological integrity.

I trust that Bringhurst, as a learning institution, holds itself to the high standard of examining the origins of the language it uses—especially when that language touches the cultural identity of its students.

Thank you for your continued leadership and openness to dialogue.

Respectfully,