Inside: Columbus Day or Indigenous Peoples’ Day? Depends on where you live.

Is today Columbus Day or Indigenous People’s Day? It depends on where you live.

Columbus Day — as it’s officially called in Connecticut — is celebrated on the second Monday in October. President Benjamin Harrison in 1892 first marked a federal celebration of Christopher Columbus’ North American landing, though it was a oneday thing back then.

It took until 1934 for it to be a regular thing. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt decided that Oct. 12 should be a federal holiday.

Some, however, have argued that the holiday celebrates genocide. Five states — most recetly Maine — and Washington D.C. have started officially celebrating Indigenous Peoples’ Day.

A 2017 proposal to change the name officially in Connecticut didn’t get further than the legislature’s Joint Committee on Government Administration and Elections.

In New Haven this year, protesters took to the streets in an attempt to get a name change for the city’s Christopher Columbus Family Academy Magnet School.

“Name should be removed because it’s an insult,” said John Lugo of Latinos United in Action, as Fox61 reported. “It makes us remember the people who suffered, and who are still suffering, in Latin America at the hands of the perpetrators 527 years ago.”

Last year in Norwalk, a statue appeared “In Honor of the Indigenous People of Norwalk,” as was written on the plywood structure. It featured the image of a Native American.

Several towns and cities around Connecticut have officially changed the name of the holiday to reflect that concern.

West Hartford Public Schools changed the name to Indigenous Peoples’ Day last year. Bridgeport schools did the same in 2015.

In New Haven, Mayor Toni Harp proclaimed Oct. 13, 2014 to be Indigenous Peoples’ Day, though it has been a source of some controversy. There was a proposal this year by Alder Kenneth Reveiz to change the name officially, citywide.

“New Haven has a responsibility to oppose the continuing systematic racism toward Indigenous Peoples in the United States and internationally, which perpetuates high rates of poverty and income inequality, exacerbates disproportionate health, education, and social stability,” the proposal said. “[I]n the U.S. and internationally, Native and Indigenous Peoples struggle for sovereignty, respect, and basic needs like water, food, shelter and mental health care, so it is imperative that we send a strong message that we are hearing their voices and are inspired to act.”