Indigenous Peoples Day? Italians say stick with Columbus

Is it time to say ‘arrivederci’ to Christopher Columbus?

A movement to abolish Columbus Day and replace it with Indigenous Peoples Day has gained momentum, with Los Angeles in August becoming the biggest city yet to stop honoring the Italian explorer.

Austin, Texas, followed suit on Thursday. It joined cities, including San Francisco, Seattle and Denver, that had previously booted Columbus in favor of Indigenous Peoples Day.

But the gesture to recognize indigenous people rather than the man who opened the Americas to European settlement has also prompted howls of outrage from some Italian-Americans, who say eliminating their festival of ethnic pride is culturally insensitive, too.

Italian-Americans have upheld Columbus as a countryman and symbol of ethnic pride. Pictured: A bust of Columbus on a float in New York’s 2015 Columbus Day parade

‘We had a very difficult time in this country for well over a hundred years,’ said Basil Russo, president of the Order Italian Sons and Daughters of America. 

‘Columbus Day is a day that we’ve chosen to celebrate who we are. And we’re entitled to do that just as they are entitled to celebrate who they are.’ 

It’s not about taking anything away from Italian-Americans, said Cliff Matias, cultural director of the Redhawk Native American Arts Council, which is hosting a ‘Re-Thinking Columbus Day’ event Sunday and Monday in New York City.

‘The conversation is Columbus,’ he said. ‘If they’re going to celebrate Columbus, we need to celebrate the fact that we survived Columbus.’

In Los Angeles, activists who succeeded in convincing the city council to abolish Columbus Day said they also wanted to change the way the history of European colonization is taught in schools. 

‘It matters, the stories that we tell and don’t tell about our histories,’ Angela Mooney D’Arcy, executive director of the Sacred Places Institute for Indigenous Peoples, told Equal Voice News. 

‘From my perspective, it’s not a matter of reconciliation, it’s about who’s telling the history and what history is being told,’ she said. 

Demonstrators with the Mexica Movement marches with other demonstrators to a statue of Christopher Columbus during a protest against Columbus Day in Grand Park, Los Angeles on October 11, 2015. Some activists view Columbus as a symbol of genocide for native peoples

Someone vandalized a statue of Christopher Columbus in Central Park last month with blood-red paint on the hands and the words ‘Hate will not be tolerated’ on the pedestal

The debate over Columbus’ historical legacy is an old one, but has became more emotionally charged after a similar debate in the South over monuments to Confederate generals flared.

In Akron, Ohio, a September vote over whether to dump Columbus opened a racial rift on the city council that was so heated, conflict mediators were brought in to sooth tensions.

Five black members voted to rename the holiday and eight white members voted against it, following a debate that devolved into shouting.

‘The first voyage of Columbus to the Americas initiated the trans-Atlantic slave trade. It would lead to the kidnapping, deaths, and slavery of tens of millions of African people,’ said Councilman Russel Neal, who is black.

But Councilman Jeff Fusco, who is Italian-American, said, ‘It’s a celebration of Italian heritage. It’s very similar to other days throughout the year that we celebrate for many other cultures.’

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio appointed a committee to evaluate whether monuments should be removed, prompting a backlash. The city’s 2006 Columbus Day parade is seen

A statue of Columbus with a protest sign at the Protest and March Against Columbus is seen in 2014 in Los Angeles

In New York City, where 35,000 people are expected to march in Monday’s Columbus Day parade, vandals last month doused the hands of a Christopher Columbus statue in blood-red paint and scrawled the words ‘hate will not be tolerated.’

Mayor Bill de Blasio appointed a committee to evaluate whether monuments to certain historical figures should be removed, prompting a backlash from his fellow Italian-Americans, who vowed to defend the Columbus statue that has stood over Manhattan’s Columbus Circle for more than a century.

This statue of the explorer has stood above New York’s Columbus Circle since 1892

Many Italians who migrated to the US initially had a rough time. 

In 1891, 11 Italians were lynched in New Orleans by a mob that held them responsible for the death of a local police official.

At the end of the 1800s, Italians began to link their heritage more with Columbus. 

Italian-American businessman and newspaper owner Generoso Pope was among those who worked to get Columbus Day recognized as a federal holiday in 1934.

‘It was one of the things that would allow them to become Americans symbolically,’ said Fred Gardaphe, a professor of Italian-American studies at Queens College.

Indigenous Peoples Day began to gel as an idea in advance of the 500th anniversary of Columbus’ first voyage to the Americas.

South Dakota began celebrating Native American Day on the second Monday of October in 1990. Berkeley, California, got rid of Columbus Day in favor of Indigenous Peoples Day in 1992.

Many places that have adopted Indigenous Peoples Day since then, including Alaska, have sizable Native American populations.

A few cities have compromised. Salt Lake City officials declared Tuesday that they would keep Columbus Day but celebrate Indigenous Peoples Day on the same day.

States and municipalities aren’t legally bound to recognize federal holidays, though most do. Columbus Day is already one of the most inconsistently celebrated. 

Boys wave Italian flags while riding a float in last year’s Columbus Day Parade in New York

Places that choose to replace it with Indigenous Peoples Day may give their own workers or schoolchildren a day off, teach in schools about Native Americans instead of Columbus, issue proclamations or mark it in other ways.

There is no question that Columbus’ arrival in the New World under the sponsorship of Spain was bad for the indigenous people of Hispaniola, the island he colonized that is now split between Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

Many of the native people of the island were forced into servitude. Multitudes died of disease. Spain repopulated the workforce with African slaves.

Columbus is celebrated in Latin America, too. A massive monument to the explorer, the Columbus Lighthouse, opened in 1992 in Santo Domingo, in the Dominican Republic. 

Puerto Rico commemorates Discovery Day on November 19, marking the day Columbus landed there.

Ralph Arellanes, chairman of the activist group Hispano Round Table of New Mexico, said that as a Hispanic, he supports Columbus Day.

‘It was the marriage of two peoples creating a new people, in a new land,’ he said.

Though Columbus ‘wasn’t a saint,’ he said, he believes Anglo-Americans like President Andrew Jackson should be held more responsible than the Spanish for the hardships Native Americans faced.

Arellanes also said he doesn’t understand why Italians claim Columbus for themselves when Columbus was sailing for Spain.