TOMS RIVER, NJ: A New Jersey town school district which is known for its high population of Italians decided to eliminate the Columbus Day holiday from the school calendar, forcing kids back to school.
The Toms River school district says the controversial decision was made to help students finish the school one calendar day earlier.
The slap in the face is over giving one more day of summer!
Local Italian American organizations voiced their displeasure over the decision and considered it an insult- as it should be.
The Italian culture is known for its close family ties and strongly embraces their culture. This can be seen in the elaborate artwork shown by famous artists throughout history, like Michelangelo and Raphael.
Other examples of strong heritage can be seen in the incredible engineering and architecture. Beautiful, miraculous buildings the Colosseum, St. Peter’s Basilica and the Leaning Tower of Pisa bring tourists from all over the world.
But the Toms River School district wants to say, ‘meh, to hell with all that’.
All to end the school year a day earlier.
Toms River is home to a large population of Italian Americans. In fact, it is a short bridge’s distance to Seaside Heights.
Seaside Heights is one of the most popular beaches in the state of New Jersey. Its historic boardwalk brings in thousands of local, regional, even international tourists.
Part of that reason is because it also happens to be the home of MTV’s wildly successful reality series Jersey Shore. The television series featured the antics of eight young Italian Americans living together. Each episode contained a strong Italian undertone with Italian flags, Italian style dinners and numerous Italian related discussions.
The Jersey Shore reality show led to six seasons and some spin off television shows featuring several of their beloved (and hated) characters. In fact, one of their six seasons was filmed in Italy.
But the Toms River school district wants to ignore all that, too.
The decision to force students back to school on Columbus certainly did not go unnoticed by the local Italian community; many of whom voiced their displeasure at a recent school board meeting.
According to a local NJ media outlet column:
“Andre’ DiMino, the president and communications director of the Italian American One Voice Coalition, called the decision an insult to the Italian American community.”
It continued:
“‘What it tells the children that go to school, they had the day off last year and by eliminating the holiday, it’s telling Italian American children that this is not a very important holiday anymore,’ he said. ‘That’s just not right.’”
DiMino went on to say:
“‘We think it’s really a disgrace that people are doing this to Columbus Day.’”
Another dissatisfied local Italian American resident spoke at the school district meeting to voice his feelings of the decision being discriminatory. He said:
“Everybody deserves their holiday. It’s not a matter of taking somebody’s holiday away, and that’s what they did here, they discriminated against the Italian American community.”
Other Local Issues with Columbus Day
Toms River isn’t the only township that toiled with the holiday. Other half-witted New Jersey township officials dealt with the holiday by buckling under political pressure and eliminated it altogether.
According to the local NJ media column:
“In New Jersey, Randolph replaced Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples’ Day on the school calendar, then erased all holiday names from the calendar after this district was criticized for making the change. Randolph schools then reversed course again and added holiday names, including Columbus Day, back on its school calendar last year.”
The column continued:
“Rockaway also removed Columbus Day from its calendar and replaced it with Indigenous People’s Day, then reversed the decision last year.”
No holiday should ever be changed.
They are representative of our culture and history. And you cannot simply erase history as many cowardly politicians wanted to just to appease public sentiment. Holidays are meant to recognize all America has been through. We are not to deny the past, but to learn from it to continue to grow and thrive as a country.
The Toms River school district administration needs to know its ok to flip flop, as politicians always do, and keep the students’ home for the holiday.
The large population of New Jersey Italian Americans deserve it, and they, along with the rest of America, deserve to keep Columbus Day, Columbus Day.
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