This year, New York City is adding another holiday to the list that determines administrative functions such as parking restrictions: Losar, the Tibetan New Year.
Losar – which is celebrated by Tibetans and other Himalayan communities, such as the Bhutanese – is now in the company of a select number of officially recognized holidays such as Christmas, Yom Kippur, Diwali, and Eid Al-Fitr. This represents a milestone for a community that only began to grow in earnest in the 1990s.
New York City also recently established a Tibetan-language Facebook page for the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs.
While New York is home to the largest Tibetan community in the United States, many other cities and states now have well-established Tibetan associations and active Tibetan communities. The maturation of these communities can be seen in the construction of Tibetan prayer halls and community centers, arranging Tibetan Sunday schools for children, and increasing political engagement such as securing meetings with elected representatives and sending participants to Tibet Lobby Day.
Tibetans in the United States and other countries enjoy human rights and democratic freedoms that China has denied to their brothers and sisters in Tibet, and they will have a central role in moving the Tibet movement forward in changing political circumstances.