THIS IS HALLOWEEN!
Should You Participate?
By Yesica Pena Jimenez
Halloween is a tradition that started back then in the 1840’s. The tradition originated with the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, when people would light bonfires and wear costumes to ward off ghosts. In the eighth century, Pope Gregory III designated November 1 as a time to honor all saints. So they made the day before Saint’s day to be Hallow’s day. So it is now a holiday and is being celebrated as Halloween on October 31’st.
Halloween can be dangerous in many ways. Let's go with the obvious. Halloween is`dangerous because when people go trick or treating they knock on strangers' doors. Who knows, maybe you're the only one there and they open the door and pull you inside so they basically kidnap you. Or reversed what if you open the door to a robber or someone with a weapon that can harm you. You open the door and they shoot, stab you, or even enter your house. It is a dark holiday where anything is allowed during halloween. When people go trick or treating it is dark and already night so cars can't see people crossing or walking by. So many things can happen on halloween because halloween starts from 5pm-4am or until people stop giving candy or stop celebrating.
Haunted houses are fun and entertaining to the community. But they can be threatening or harmful if something goes wrong. One day I went to a haunted house and we were getting there and there was an ambulance there and some cops, and we saw that someone got injured because something went wrong in the haunted house. He had a cut on his waist and was in pain bleeding everywhere while people circled around him. Nobody had known what happened but the people in that haunted house. All I know is that something for sure happened that night that me and my oldest sister went to a different location for a haunted house because we didn't want to risk our lives. Haunted houses should have a certain age limit. People that get scared easily shouldn't get in or be a part of it. Having to take care of a child under 14 years old when you're in a haunted house is no fun. Because if that child gets scared they will ruin the fun and we will have to exit the haunted house.
I get that halloween is a fun holiday to celebrate, people have very different opinions about Halloween. Halloween is fun and entertaining but can be very dangerous. People celebrate Halloween even if it’s dangerous because people like scary stuff. Other people choose not to celebrate it because it's frightening and dangerous. Some people in general don't celebrate it because they are Christians and don't believe in it, because it is the devils work.
Halloween is fun but you should have a certain age to stay up late, be out late , and to enter the haunted houses. But overall halloween is fun and dangerous at the same time, but it's all up to the people's choices to either celebrate it or to not celebrate the holiday!!! :)
SHOULD HALLOWEEN BE CANCELLED?
By: Angelina Lourdes Valdez, Julius Gunn, Alyssa Bautista
After being put through a worldwide pandemic, I think it’s safe to say that a lot of things were very different and many things changed. Due to safety reasons Halloween, the holiday that is loved throughout the whole nation was cancelled. Even though there are people who don’t celebrate Halloween and people who might have even seen it coming but it still came as a surprise to most. Now that Halloween is around the corner, we wanted to see people's opinions on whether or not they would want the day to be cancelled again this year. What do the people at East Tech have to say about what the status of Halloween should be?
When interviewing and looking through our survey , we began to understand the different point of views that the people of East Tech have and noticed the different standpoints that were taken. A little more than 93 percent of people agreed that Halloween should not be cancelled this year while roughly 6 percent said that it should be cancelled. When getting the different responses, a reoccurring response was something along the lines of “Because it’s fun for the little kids.” said by Richard Guitierrez. We feel like a lot of the people in our society want the younger generation to be able to experience things the way that we did. Although the older kids are most of the time told that they’re getting too old to trick or treat, why should the younger generations get robbed of it? A lot of the responses we received are just really excited to be able to show off their costumes this year like Humza Moten who shared his opinion of “No, because it’s the only few times to flex cool costumes.” There are a lot of people who can finally get out of their comfort zone and express themselves with the help of Halloween. This is a day full of fun and excitement for a lot of people varying in age and groups around the nation. Staying safe and keeping everyone around us safe will be easier to manage knowing all the safety precautions we must continue to take. If we all remember to stay safe and keep our masks up when we’re around strangers and/or getting candy then we will all be okay! One student, who decided to stay anonymous, felt very strong about this statement “Because just why? Not many people will be close to each other and you'll only ever be close to someone at the door for a maximum of like 1 or 2 minutes maybe.” Along with giving their opinion they also gave options for you to stay safe during the night of Halloween. “That and depending on where you go in town, plus if you need to then stay in the car to travel between houses. If not, you have two sides of the road to go to if you see a large group of people.”
After we collected all the information and surveys many people stated that they just stayed home due to the pandemic and that they weren’t many trick or treaters. An anonymous student perfectly describes most of these students' situations when they said “It was different because it was harder to do anything because of all the restrictions and the concerns at the time.” We all know how hard 2020 was, and it’s not fair that we have to miss out on a halloween.
Luckily we have Halloween this year. Remember, you’re never too old for Halloween, especially since we already lost an opportunity. So make sure to be safe this year, but most importantly, cherish it, we don’t know what could happen next year.