Dump Columbus?

Movement grows to replace his holiday with Indigenous Peoples Day

NEW YORK — A movement to abolish Columbus Day and replace it with Indigenous Peoples Day has gained momentum in some parts of the United States, with Los Angeles in August becoming the biggest city yet to decide to stop honoring the Italian explorer and instead recognize victims of colonialism.

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

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

“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 ItalianAmericans, said Cliff Matias, cultural director of the Redhawk Native American Arts Council, which hosted a Re-Thinking Columbus Day event Sunday and Monday in New York.

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

The debate over Columbus’ historical legacy is an old one, but it became emotionally charged after a similar debate in the South over monuments to Confederate generals flared into deadly violence in August at a rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

In New York, 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”.

Activists calling for the city to change the parade’s name also are expected to hold a demonstration.

On Sunday, three demonstrators briefly interrupted a wreath-laying ceremony at the Columbus statue in Columbus Circle. Police said one person was arrested.

Many Italians who migrated to the US initially had a rough time, but at the end of the 1800s, Italians began to link themselves 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 1937.

“It was one of the things that would allow them to become Americans symbolically,” said Fred Gardaphe, a professor of ItalianAmerican studies at Queens College.

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.

But he added that he doesn’t understand why Italians claim Columbus for themselves when Columbus was sailing for Spain.

EDUARDO MUNOZ / REUTERS Revelers perform during a “powwow” celebrating the Indigenous Peoples Day Festival on Randalls Island, New York, on Sunday. The festival is held as a counter-celebration to Columbus Day and to promote Native American culture and history.