The holiday season does not look the same for everyone and with WSU Vancouver’s diverse student body, one could expect that your celebration might look very different from your lab partner’s. VanCougs spoke with The VanCougar to share their culture’s most important holidays and how they celebrate them.
Freshman biology major Xena Le is of Vietnamese heritage. She explained that the biggest holiday in her culture is Tết, the Vietnamese New Year.
Tết is based on the Vietnamese lunar calendar and usually occurs in January or February. This year the holiday falls on Jan. 25. According to Le, Portland, Oregon hosts different Lunar New Year festivals.
“It’s a big celebration,” Le explained. “People dress up as dragons and do traditional dances. There’s a lot of food.” According to Le, family and friends gather together and share traditional food, like Bánh chưng, sticky rice cakes stuffed with different fillings like pork and beans.
Le’s favorite tradition of the holiday is when “The kids bless the adults and after the adults are blessed, they give the kids money,” Le said. “It’s a fun holiday.”
Othman Alamoudi, a senior management and information major, moved to the United States in 2014 from Yemen. While he has lived in the United States for five years and plans to make it his home, he proudly upholds his cultural roots and celebrates Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha; Muslim holidays, often celebrated with festivals.
Eid al-Fitr marks the end of the holy month, Ramadan. Eid al-Adha commemorates Ibrahim’s obedience to Allah. According to Alamoudi, the day begins by giving thanks.
“We wake up at 8:00 o’clock in the morning, and we go to the mosque, and we pray, and then after we pray we greet each other and then go to each other’s houses. At one o’clock we gather and we eat together,” Alamoudi said.
Sophomore Jason Vedette celebrates their Irish ancestry by recognizing Yule, a Celtic festival that takes place from December 22, 2019, to January 2, 2020. Yule symbolizes the death of the old year and heralds the dawn of the new.
According to Vedette, “It is to celebrate the end of winter and extension of days as it goes into summer.” One of the long-lasting Celtic traditions is the Yule log. According to lore, Celtic priests set fire to a Yule log to ward off evil spirits and bring good luck in the following year.
People decorated their houses with mistletoe and holly and gathered together to share food and celebrate, according to Vedette. “It’s pretty much the original Christmas!” Vedette said.
Junior mechanical engineering major, James Yoopat, came to the U.S. from Thailand at the age of 13. Yoopat explained even though Thanksgiving and Christmas are Christian and western holidays, many Thai people celebrate them.
“Cultures influence each other,” Yoopat said. “ [Thai] people have just adopted it as their tradition.” According to Yoopat, Thailand ushers in the new year with their biggest and most famous festival; Songkran.
The new year celebration takes every year from April 13 to 15. Yoopat explained that Songkran is, “a big water fight. People pull out water guns and soak each other. It’s a classic Thai tradition.”
WSU Vancouver recognizes some cultural celebrations, such as Diwali and Día de los Muertos, throughout the year in an attempt to foster an inclusive environment. If you aim to learn more about your classmate’s cultures, consider attending the next cultural celebration.
Krysten Stewart is a junior at WSU Vancouver pursuing an English degree.