Columbus Day puts culture clash on display
Holiday replaced by Indigenous Peoples Day in some places.
Amid a movement to replace Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples Day, Italian-Americans say they are being disrespected.
Is it time to say NEWYORK— “arrivederci” to Christopher Columbus?
A movement to abolish Columbus Day and replace it with Indigenous Peoples Day has gained momentum in some parts of the U.S., 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 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 domination has also prompted howls of outrage fromsome Italian-Americans, who say eliminating their festival of ethnic pride is culturally insensitive, too.
“We had a very diffifficult 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 celebratewho 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.”
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 flflared into deadly violence in August at a rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
In Akron, Ohio, a September vote over whether to dump Columbus opened a racial rift on the city council that was so heated, conflflictmediatorswere brought in to sooth tensions.
In New York City, where 35,000 people are expected tomarchinMonday’sColumbus Day parade, vandals last month doused the hands of a Christopher Columbus statue inblood-redpaint and scrawled the words “hate will not be tolerated.”
Mayor Bill de Blasio appointed a committee to evaluate whether monuments to certain historical fifigures should be removed, prompting a backlash from fellowItalian- Americanswho vowed to defend the Columbus statuethathas stoodover Manhattan’s Columbus Circle formore than a century.
Many Italians who migrated to the U.S. 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 offifficial.
At the end of the 1800s, Italians began to link themselvesmorewith 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 becomeAmericans symbolically,” saidFred 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’ fifirst 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 fewcities have compromised. Salt Lake City offifficials declared Tuesday that they would keep Columbus Day butcelebrateIndigenousPeoples Day on the same day.
In Akron, a city with few NativeAmericans anda large Italian-American community, an attempt to rename Columbus Day as Indigenous People’s Day on Sept. 11 split the all-Democrat city council along racial lines. Five black members voted to rename the holiday and eightwhitemembers voted against it, following a debate that devolved into shouting.
“ThefifirstvoyageofColumbus to theAmericas 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.
ButCouncilmanJeffffFusco, whois 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.”
There is no question that Columbus’ arrival intheNew World under the sponsorship of Spainwas bad for the indigenouspeopleofHispaniola, the island he colonized that is now split between Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
Many of the native people of the islandwere forced into servitude. Multitudes died of disease. Spain repopulated the workforce with African slaves.
Columbus is celebrated in LatinAmerica, too. Amassive monument to the explorer, the Columbus Lighthouse, opened in 1992 in Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic. Puerto Rico commemorates Discovery Day on Nov. 19, marking the day Columbus landed there.
RalphArellanes, chairman of the activist groupHispano Round Table of New Mexico, said that as a Hispanic, he supports Columbus Day.
“Itwas themarriage oftwo peoples creating a newpeople, in a newland,” he said.
ThoughColumbus“wasn’t a saint,” he said, he believes Anglo-Americans like PresidentAndrewJackson should be held more responsible than the Spanish for the hardships Native Americans faced.
Arellanes also said he doesn’t understand why Italians claimColumbus for themselveswhen Columbus was sailing for Spain.