Lunar New Year shows Texas’ diversity is worth celebrating

I called state Rep. Gene Wu Tuesday to wish him a happy Lunar New Year and to ask whether the Year of the Pig is off to a good start.

Wu, a Democrat who represents House District 137 in southwest Harris County, is one of just three Asian-American members of the Texas Legislature. The other two are Democratic state Rep. Hubert Vo, also of Houston, and Republican state Rep. Angie Chen Button of Garland. And that morning, their colleagues in the Texas House had joined them in celebrating the Lunar New Year by adopting a resolution they co-authored to that effect.

But the celebration came amid backlash to the news last month by Texas Secretary of State David Whitley that his office had flagged 95,000 registered voters as potential noncitizens.

In the weeks leading up to his State of the State speech, Gov. Greg Abbott has been sounding the alarm about voter fraud and illegal voting by noncitizens — which is extremely rare. Republicans like Texas Attorney Gen. Ken Paxton have seconded those concerns.

Their actions reminded me that we all benefit from the state’s diversity and from the diversity of its electorate, which helps ensure that their fearmongering about certain communities won’t go unchallenged.

Which brings us back to Lunar New Year. The holiday, which is sometimes referred to as Chinese New Year, doesn’t have a fixed date — it marks the beginning of a new year on the lunar calendar, which varies depending the lunar cycle. And Wu, who was born in China, refers to the holiday as Lunar New Year, as a way of recognizing the diversity of the Asian community in Texas.

“It’s a time of celebration, a time of family togetherness, a time of great food,” Wu said. And that morning, he had told his colleagues that this year

should be a good one, even for Texans who don’t celebrate Lunar New Year.

And this year is not just the Year of the Pig, which happens every 12 years — it is the Year of the Golden Pig, which Wu said cycles around every 60 years.

“The Year of the Pig is already supposed to be a year of great prosperity, of great joy, but the year of the Golden Pig is supposed to be an especially prosperous, especially joyous year,” Wu said, while introducing the resolution. “So we hope that the entire state benefits from the Year of the Golden Pig, especially during the legislative session.”

Wu, who was born during the Year of the Horse, demurred when I asked him to explain the astrology in more elaborate detail. As an attorney, his expertise lies elsewhere.

The Legislature’s budget-writers could use good news. In his State of the State address, Abbott called for school finance reform, teacher pay raises and property tax relief as emergency items for this year’s legislative session. Two years ago, Abbott’s emergency items were sanctuary cities and school bathrooms.

This year, many Democrats had been worried that Whitley’s announcement about the voter purge was a sign that Abbott was planning to list election fraud among his emergency items for the session.

More specifically, the governor might have called on the Legislature to pass a law requiring Texans to provide proof of citizenship before registering to vote in state elections. Bills to that effect have already been filed in the Texas House and the Texas Senate.

And, to many Texans, that might sound like a reasonable idea. But those Texans would be inconvenienced by the passage of such legislation, if not effectively disenfranchised by it. A look at the text of House Bill 378, authored by Republican state Rep. Mike Lang of Granbury, makes that clear.

An unexpired passport would be acceptable as proof of citizenship, by its standards. So would a certified copy of your birth certificate, or your naturalization papers.

Most Americans don’t carry such documents around with them, on a daily basis. A majority of U.S. citizens don’t even have passports. The passage of such a measure would therefore have a chilling effect on voter registration in the state. The Texas Republicans who’ve been sounding the alarm about voter fraud and illegal voting by noncitizens, like Abbott, seemingly haven’t even considered that.

And Texas voters should therefore be thankful for the diversity of the state’s electorate and the growing diversity of our elected officials. The latest Republican-led crackdown on voting rights has targeted certain communities, including the Asian community.

The Democrats and civil-rights groups who’ve defending the rights of the voters in those communities have been defending the rights of all Texans, even if many Texans don’t realize that.

And Wu is right, that all Texans have something to celebrate during this year’s Lunar New Year festivities.