Cultural celebration months seem honorable at first glance. The goals are to appreciate how diverse of a country we are, which is honorable to say the least. These months often break down stereotypes, teach people something they didn’t know about a specific group of people and promote cultural pride.

Unfortunately, they are not equal, and sometimes not present, for a majority of the world’s cultures.

The first problem with these months is equality, in terms of how popular they are. Most of us can ramble off a few cultural months involved with celebration, such as Hispanic Heritage Month and Black History Month—but what about the other months dedicated to celebration?

There is a Polish American Heritage Month, Caribbean American Heritage Month and even an Irish-American History Month.

Unfortunately, throughout my entire educational experience I have never had a school celebrate these other cultural months. We always celebrated the popular ones, but the other months weren’t even mentioned.

This even happens here at Cosumnes River College. I remember a poster for Black History Month hanging from the library building but no similar treatment for Jewish American History Month.

Not mentioning cultural months is one issue, but not having months for some cultures is an entirely bigger issue.

There are people who don’t fit into these broad, “popular” categories. By not having a month for them we are telling them that their cultures aren’t important and aren’t worth celebrating.

Cultural months are dedicated to understanding one another and working to end ignorance. The way these cultural celebrations currently take place, this goal is impossible.

Lets just say that we decided to create a month for every culture to go along with the other popular cultural months we currently have.

Even by trying to level the playing field, we would fail as a society because there are only twelve months in a year with far more cultures in the world.

Instead of picking and choosing what groups are worth celebrating, which is what we’re currently doing, we should combine them all into a single cultural diversity month.

This would not only keep the current goal but also fix the current problem: inequality.

By making this change, every culture would receive its own fair share of celebration.

Granted, this process might take years if they’re only occurring once a year, but it would ensure that no one feels left out.

We should definitely celebrate our differences. However, we should also notice when we’re treating others unfairly. Lets keep the goal but change the problem—have one “Multicultural Month.”