Dubai-born New York’s first Indian American State Senator Kevin Thomas, who assumed office at the beginning of this year, is advocating tolerance and pushing for diversity.

Currently, the chairman of the Committee on Consumer Protection and a member of various committees, Thomas has introduced a bill in the NY state senate that gives holidays for schools on festivals observed by multi-faith communities.

The bill proposes closure where individual school districts have at least seven and a half percent of student population, that celebrates festivals like Eid Al Fitr, Eid Al Adha, Diwali, Vaisakhi, Onam and Good Friday.

He cited the Dubai experience of communities celebrating festivals of different religions and regions as one of the personal reasons why he sponsored the bill.

Thomas was born and raised in Dubai until he was 10, following which his parents Thomas Kanamoottil and Rachel Thomas, who are from Ranni in Kerala, decided to move to the US for their children's higher education.

Thomas got elected to the NY State Senate on Nov. 6, 2018, as the Democratic member representing the sixth district, Nassau County, in one of the victories that New York had never seen before.

An attorney and an appointee of the US Commission on Civil Rights to the New York State Advisory Committee, a federal agency tasked with civil rights oversight, Thomas defeated the incumbent Senator Kemp Hannon, who had served in the State Senate since 1989.

His family’s experience of living along with people of myriad cultures in Dubai has indeed stood in good stead for Thomas who won the election after a painstaking door-to-door campaign.