What readers had to say about revisiting Columbus Day

Last week, I pitched the idea of changing Columbus Day to Exploration Day — a time to celebrate not just Christopher Columbus but other pioneers from various time periods and cultures. It seemed like a thoughtful solution to a controversial holiday that’s been the subject of protests and debates for at least a quarter of a century.

Many of you emailed me with your thoughts, and opinions were all over the map.

Some were definitely on board with the idea. Dick King, the retired fundraising guru who spent 28 years with the Tech Museum, said he loved the idea. “And what better place to start than Silicon Valley, the center of global innovation through the exploration of new and exciting technological frontiers,” he wrote.

Another reader, Mary Fullerton, wrote that both she and her husband supported a change to Exploration Day as a step toward inclusiveness and away from the “ugly divisiveness of current times.”

“Everyone can celebrate exploration in her/ his own way,” she wrote. “Maybe we can then listen to other people’s feelings without judgment.”

Others like the concept of change but had their own ideas. San Jose resident John Turner suggested “Discovery Day” or “Learning and Discovery Day” — though I think the latter would take up too much space on my wall calendar. Scott Paul suggested changing the holiday to Ohlones Day, to honor our region’s original explorers: “It seems whatever park in the Bay Area I go to there is a trace of the Ohlones,” he wrote.

Louisa Capp thought Exploration Day was an excellent idea. “As an indigenous person, I find this day very complicated,” she wrote, adding that she found it interesting I made no mention of Leif Erikson. She’s right; I dropped the ball in not mentioning the Norse explorer, who is now widely accepted to have been the first European to set foot on North America about 500 years before Columbus.

I also had no idea that Leif Erikson Day has been observed annually in the United States on Oct. 9 since 1964, after being championed by lawmakers from Minnesota, which has a large Norwegian population and has celebrated Erikson’s feat as a state holiday since 1931. Columbus celebrations, meanwhile, date back to the 18th century in the United States, and it was FDR — spurred on by the Knights of Columbus and others — who made it a federal holiday in 1934.

Deborah LeFalle was pretty adamant that we should just switch to Indigenous People’s Day, as many other communities have. “If folks don’t know why, then they need to educate themselves on the true history of this country,” she wrote. “People can and should ‘explore’ every day as a matter of course, for our collective edification.”

Columbus Day had its share of supporters, too.

Tony Zerbo, a member of the Italian-American Heritage Foundation’s board of directors, had this to say: “Exploration Day just doesn’t do justice as to what Columbus achieved as a brave navigator who crossed the Atlantic and to prove that the world was not flat,” Zerbo said. “He opened up the New World.”

Ken Borelli, his colleague on the IAHF board, took an historical perspective on the issue in his comments, which touched on Columbus’ technological achievements and the tradition of Columbus Day in Latin America, where as “Dia de la Raza,” it recognizes the founding of a blended series of nation states. Maybe the United States, he wondered, should celebrate with a national holiday called “Nation Day.”

“Given that Columbus’s efforts were the original spark, in all its complexities, that ultimately created who we are today as a nation it may well be appropriate to use this day to reflect on our nationhood, and how and why we got to this point in our evolution as a society by dedicating

the day in honor of the Nation,” he wrote.

Not everyone was as open to change, however. Bill Moniz called the idea off-base. “In case you didn’t know, this is an American holiday and not some day to make up whatever country your forefathers came from day,” he wrote. “How do you expect to bring people together when you suggest naming it one of the names you came up with? American history is what it is, and people of your ilk have no right to try to change it.”

“How about we just leave Columbus Day alone?” Frank McLaughlin wrote. “It’s called history!”

Well, you can’t please everybody.

One last thought on the subject: The city of San Jose’s news release announcing that city offices would be closed Oct. 8 referred only to a “City holiday” and made no mention of Columbus Day. Maybe the city’s starting to explore its options, too.