BY PAM LOBLEY
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
NOW THAT’S FUNNY
The Paterson school district, New Jersey’s third largest public school district, had planned to be open on Columbus Day. Usually they are closed that day, in observance of the holiday. But this year, they have already missed many school days because of flooding, and they need to make up those days. New Jersey requires a total of 180 days of school.
When the Italians got word of this, they didn’t like it. The Italian American One Voice Coalition particularly didn’t like it because the school was choosing to stay closed on the Muslim holiday of Eidh-Al-Ahda, celebrated on November 7, but to open on Columbus Day, a traditional American holiday. They saw that as disrespectful to a state with such a large number of Italian American residents. The Paterson school district, by the way, is 60 percent Hispanic, 30 percent African American and 9 percent other.
