What makes a memorial successful? Throughout history, memorials and holidays have been used to remember something. That something ranges in many different things, such as the sacrifices of people fighting for wars, holidays to show appreciation for workers that help stimulate every people’s lives, or something as simple as a funeral dedicated for a loved one. While a simple funeral is easy to erect, the same cannot be said for public memorials. Throughout American history, many memorials were met with sharp criticism and opposition. Such memorials like the erection of the confederate general Robert E. Lee and Christopher Columbus were faced with harsh protests and unrest. Even modern-day memorials like George Floyd or the dollar bill of Harriet Tubman have sparked riots between the opposing political side. Statues were taken down and many people were injured by police or by other protestors. With many difficulties facing memorial creation, how can a memorial such as Asian Recognition Month be passed? The answer is simple. Although there are many ways, the four best methods to get a memorial passed are 1. to get partisan support and then bipartisan support later, 2. Encourage learning of the memorial at elementary school level, 3. Starting events such as dances, marches, etc, and 4. Encourage advertising regarding the certain memorial.
One of the ways we can make memorials successful is by garnering support in like-minded places. For example, if we were to try to pass a holiday that revolves around a certain minority, it would be best to do it in a state that has political support for our proposal. Passing an Asian Recognition Month holiday would be much easier in New York than in Texas, since Texas has a higher conservative population than New York’s conservative population. In order to even think about passing Asian Recognition Month, a sizeable amount of support must be gathered. Once that has been done, reporting to New York City’s legislation office would be far more achievable. For example, if there isn’t enough support, it could end up like Arizona, where “Arizona resisted giving state workers the day off on Martin Luther King Jr. Day”. In other words, The more support that has been gathered, the more likely it is possible for the New York City lawmaking committee to pass our bill. If the mayor supports our bill, it would be very easy to pass it. The mayor will likely support our bill to get high approval ratings, and that in turn leads to Asian Recognition Month gaining more traction amongst locals and social media. Mainstream media can spread news about the holiday while social media like Tiktok, Twitter can start trends in fashion and dancing related to Asian Recognition Month.
Another way we can make memorials successful is by educating the younger generation about the content of our holiday. For example, if we want people to understand the significance of Columbus Day, we can educate them on Christopher Columbus’ journey to North America and talk about what he did there. In this case, we can start educating younger kids (starting Elementary school) about Asian Recognition Month by letting them engage in activities such as but not limited to: arts and crafts such as manga and henna, Asian instruments such as Pipu and Erhu, and Asian dances such as the dragon and lion dances. By exposing such activities to kids, we can spread awareness about what activities the other world participates in and give the younger students a new and open perspective about the world around us. This is important because we do not want to end up like Black Lives Matter, where according to mainstream media, “poll shows that in general, American history falls short when taking into account the role of African-Americans. 66% of people surveyed agree with that statement.” If people are not engaged enough with Asian Recognition, then it is hard to gain traction amongst everyone in the United States. This is why educating the youth is very important and one of the main ways to make Asian Recognition Month successful.
The third way to make memorials successful is by using the arts to promote the memorial. For example, we can use Asian music, the three East Asian comics (Manhwa, manhua, and manga), and K-pop to promote Asian Recognition Month. The Black Lives Matter used this strategy very well. They managed to incentivize their popular hip-hop and rap in order to gain support amongst Americans as well as the world about the purpose of Black Lives Matter. In fact, according to NPR, “2020 Was The Year Of Protest Music”, as there were many popular songs such as “Freeze Tag” (ft. Cordae, Phoelix & Snoop Dogg) and Song 33 made by the Black community. This actively helped spread awareness to other people but also brought great joy and appreciation for black music. In our case, grown ups can use Asian comics to promote awareness to kids. Kids particularly love comics. Teachers can introduce them to different types of Asian comics. They can introduce popular manhwas like Legend Of The Northern Blade and Windbreaker. They can also introduce popular mangas like Naruto, One Piece, and Bleach. All of these have established popularity already so it would be very convenient in bringing awareness to children.
The fourth way to make memorials successful is to encourage advertising regarding the memorial. This method ties very well to the third method. In order to advertise something, companies need a product. Art is a very good product because everyone enjoys it and talks about it more than anything else. This is especially how Black Lives Matter succeeded in marketing their message to the masses. According to Acemetrix, “Black Lives Matter Themed Ads See Success”, with top Black Lives matter Ads like The Truth is #BlackLivesMatter (made by NBA) and Making A Difference By Papa Johns seeing Ace Scores of over 670. This data shows that Black Lives Matter made a successful effort in being able to market to consumers by using big name brands like Papa Johns and NBA. This helped bring Black support as well as give black-dominated businesses a boost in revenue. If Asian Americans are able to replicate Black Lives Matter’s tactics in promoting our Asian products, we may quite as well see the same result as Black Lives Matter. This will lead to increased awareness which will also lead to increased diversity tolerance amonst the American people.
Although Asian Recognition Month should be considered important enough to be added, there are some critics who argue for its passing. Such critics argue that adding Asian Recognition Month in an already saturated holiday is not a good idea. Although those critics have a point that adding another month holiday like Black History Month could make the calender too saturated with holidays and events, it can be argued that Asian Recognition Month is worth the risk. Adding Asian Recognition Month has benefits that outweighs the risks, because it is important to educate the youth about Asian Recognition Month in order to strive for diversity and unity. Another criticism for Asian Recognition Month is that Asian Americans already have a holiday. That holiday is Chinese New Year and the Autumn Festival. However, those two holidays are not sufficient enough to demonstrate Asian contribution because it provides only a narrow view of Asian Americans. Chinese New Year and the Autumn Festival are strictly Chinese holidays, and does not encompass many other diverse Asians such as Indians, Japanese, Malaysians, etc. Having only Chinese New Year and the Autumn festival, therefore, provides a narrow view, which encourages misconceptions as well as negative stereotypes of Asian Americans as a whole, which is why Asian Recognition Month should be added to acknowledge ALL Asian Americans of the United States.
In conclusion, passing a memorial requires many plans and approval. Starting a memorial is by no means an easy task. Many memorials, especially in the United States Of America, started but failed to pass many memorials. That is because of the increasingly partisan political climate that subjects the American people every day. This essay is by no means a silver bullet to passing a memorial, but it does lay out some key groundworks that readers can rely on when starting a memorial for a good cause. As discriminations towards Asian Americans become more prevalent and recorded, Asian Recognition Month becomes increasingly important. It is necessary to educate the youth about the importance of Asian heritage in order to insure that America continues to remain as the Land of the free, a true melting pot.
Source cited:
Koerner, B. (2004, June 8). How to declare a federal holiday. Slate Magazine. Retrieved December 17, 2022, from https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2004/06/how-to-declare-a-federal-holiday.html
NBC Connecticut. (2022, February 18). New poll shows that people think there’s a lack of teaching in African-American history. NBC Connecticut. Retrieved December 17, 2022, from https://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/local/new-poll-shows-that-people-think-theres-a-lack-of-teaching-in-african-american-history/2723279/
NPR. (2020, December 7). 2020 was the year of protest music. NPR. Retrieved December 17, 2022, from https://www.npr.org/2020/12/07/943264940/2020-was-the-year-of-protest-music
Black lives matter themed ads see success. Ace Metrix. (2020, December 14). Retrieved December 17, 2022, from https://www.acemetrix.com/insights/blog/black-lives-matter-themed-ads-see-success/