OPINION: Lunar New Year felt like it was my birthday and no one knew it

Imagine if you woke up on your birthday and waited with excitement for that first text from a friend or any recognition, only for nothing to happen. Imagine that feeling of erasure, invisibility. This was how Nicole Teh SC ’27 felt on Lunar New Year. Despite decoration and excitement abound, Teh felt unmoored from her culture and encountered a great hesitance to engage in celebration from her predominately white peers. Teh argues that cultural sensitivity has reached the point of cultural blindness and that we must be willing to authentically engage with the differing cultural and ethnic backgrounds we encounter.

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