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`Heritage' months filling up fast

BY ALVA JAMES-JOHNSON

South Florida Sun-Sentinel

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - Minority groups that want their own heritage month had better get in line.

With only 12 months in the year, the calendar is quickly filling up, due to a proliferation of requests for such designations.

Already, there are national months to celebrate the contributions of women, African-Americans, Hispanics, Irish-Americans, American Indians and Asian Pacific-Americans. President Bush recently designated May as Jewish Heritage Month, and Caribbean- and Haitian-American months are in the pipeline.

Sociologists say the flurry of requests sheds light on maturing immigrant communities and the changing face of America.

A national observance "means your ethnicity and your racial group has achieved a level of legitimacy," said George Wilson, a sociology professor at the University of Miami. "And you can use it to your advantage in the social and economic arenas."

Some disagree. Jose Enrique Idler, a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank based in Washington, D.C., said the heritage months divide Americans.

"People already have enough differences as it is," said Idler, a Venezuelan immigrant and author of "Officially Hispanic: Classification Policy and Ethnic Identity." "It's better for government to emphasize what we all have in common, not what separates us from one another."

But Crispian Kirk, director of international affairs for the NAACP, said the country needs such observances because history books don't tell the whole American story.

"I don't think the U.S. educational system yet has incorporated people of different cultures and their backgrounds into the curriculum the way they should be," he said.

In 1926, Carter G. Woodson, an African-American historian, launched Negro History Week to compensate for the lack of information about African-Americans in history books. Held in February, the birth month of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln, the week became Black History Month in 1976.

Kirk said the NAACP welcomes the new national observances, and doesn't see them as a distraction from Black History Month.

"We're supportive of Caribbean Americans, Haitian Americans, and any group that wants to promote a better understanding in their community and outside of their community," he said.

After U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., championed a resolution for Jewish Heritage Month, the House of Representatives passed it in December 2005. The Senate approved it in February, and the president signed the proclamation April 20.

But politicians who aim to honor ethnic and racial groups can find the going difficult, especially when one group overlaps with another.

U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek, D-Fla., recently reintroduced a bill calling for May also to be designated Haitian Cultural Heritage Month. That dismayed Caribbean-Americans who had already included Haitians in their proposal for a Caribbean Heritage Month in June.

Claire Nelson, founder and president of the Washington, D.C.-based Institute of Caribbean Studies, said Caribbean-Americans should present themselves as a united front for political progress.

She said other Caribbean countries have supported Haiti over the years, but Haitians, who speak French Creole, continue to isolate themselves from the English-speaking Caribbean.

"This Haitian-American thing will be seen as divisive," she said.

The Haitian designation, proposed for May, also poses a conflict with Jewish American and Pacific Asian heritage months, which are already celebrated in the same month.

But Emeline Alexis, founder of the Haitian American Cultural Society, said Haitian-Americans don't always get the attention they deserve when they're lumped with English-speaking Caribbean immigrants.

"Although we like very much to be considered like brothers and sisters, we need to be cognizant of the fact that we're somewhat different as well," she said. "Our culture is different. Our language is different. This is a way to showcase our culture for people not to forget us politically and respect us locally."

She said Haitian-Americans have been celebrating Haitian Cultural Heritage Month in Miami for six years, and it has spread to other cities. Haitian Flag Day falls on May 18.

Nelson, of the Institute for Caribbean Studies, said her group began pushing for Caribbean-American Heritage Month in the late 1990s to help strengthen ties between the U.S. government and Caribbean countries.

The movement gained momentum when the Washington, D.C., city council declared a Caribbean-American Heritage Week for June. Organizers teamed up with U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., for a month-long observance, but Congress tabled the bill in 2004. Lee reintroduced the bill in 2005 and it passed in the House and Senate.

Nelson expects the president to sign the proclamation this month, and says it would give Caribbean-Americans the recognition they deserve.

"I think before we started being called America's third border, the Caribbean was considered America's backyard," she said. "In the Caribbean, a backyard is nothing to show off."