January 26, 2023
Dear LREI Families,
Greetings to all. To those of you who are part of the roughly two billion people worldwide who celebrate Lunar New Year, I wish you a happy and joy-filled New Year. There are so many ways that the various cultures who celebrate the Lunar New Year mark the days, days filled with family, food and tradition. Whatever the holiday brings to your family, I hope that your celebrations were joyous.
Thank you to the Asian American Families Committee for all that you did to create LREI’s community celebration. This morning and this afternoon Little Red Square was filled with joy and happiness, with learning, sharing, laughs and smiles. On Tuesday, the Fours paraded through the Sixth Avenue building with their homemade New Year dragon, and this afternoon the high school Mandarin students led a celebration for their schoolmates. Beautiful, moving, and fun for all. Just what it should be.
This joy, these sweet celebrations, are made all the more poignant when seen in contrast with the grief and sadness that is to be found in the communities that experienced violence and injury earlier in the week. At this point, the motives of the gunmen in Monterey Park and Half Moon Bay are not known. The impact on the Asian communities, however, is quite clear; it is tragic and is magnified for having occurred during what should be a time of joy and peace and harmony. It is important to note that many communities were impacted by these incidents and that no one is immune to the sadness created by this hatred. Our hearts go out to the families of the victims and to the communities impacted by these heinous acts and we recommit ourselves to the efforts to create peace and love in all communities.
These are hard lessons for our children, and for us as adults. I am confident that we can, that we must, navigate them together.
Peace and health,
