Tamang New Year Celebration 2023
On January 22, Erie’s Tamang Buddhist Cultural Center celebrated their biggest public event of the year. Lhosar is a New Year’s gathering featuring over 20 acts of song, dance, speeches, blessings, and lots of food. The president of the Cultural Center, Pasang Tamang said, “We celebrate this event to promote and protect our culture and heritage. We do it every year. We want to keep our identity and pass it to our young brothers and sisters.”
The Tamang are part of Erie’s large Nepali Bhutanese community who were resettled as refugees starting in 2008. Pasang Tamang, the Board President of the Center continued, “We were peaceful people, but we were forced to leave Bhutan. We lived in refugee camps in Nepal until we were able to come to Erie. Erie has about 4000 Nepali Bhutanese and about 500 of us are Tamang. We wanted to have a special organization to focus on our unique culture. We have been keeping our Tamang culture alive since the 16th century! We officially started our Gumba in 2019 and purchased a former church in Lawrence Park.”
The Tamang Buddhist Cultural Center holds a weekly religious meeting, and it also has Tamang language, and music and dance classes. The cultural center recently received a second year of funding from a Preserving Diverse Cultures Grant from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. Pasang continued, “This grant helps us plan ahead. It also allows us to give small rewards to the artists. It helps us keep our standards high and motivate everyone to do a good job.”
Erie Arts & Culture’s Folklorist-in-Residence, Kelly Armor, agreed, “It is so exciting to see an event where all ages, from babies to elders, are so engaged. It is especially gratifying to see that teens and young adults were driving the program. That shows they’ve got a strong future.”
Pasang concludes, “When we came to Erie, from Nepal, in 2008 - 2015, we had to work so hard to adapt. We had to learn English, we had to get work. The agencies help us to be Americans. Now we are getting a grant to help us keep our culture. It touches our hearts. It gives us great hope.”
The Tamang Buddhist Cultural Center’s Lhosar is supported by a Preserving Diverse Cultures grant from the PCA.
