I would distinguish between
- saying the U.S. national identity is rooted in those early European colonists/explorers/conquistadors, to the exclusion of the indigenous peoples they conflicted with, and
- “viewing the U.S. as a white country”
Assuming you meant ‘the history of all Americans, regardless of where they originally came from or how many Americans share that history, is part of our national history’, I disagree on principle. The Great Famine in Ireland is not American history despite, WAG, one in ten Americans being of Irish heritage. The French and Indian war is U.S. history; however, the U.S. is properly identified with the British side and not the French, regardless of how many Americans may have ancestry on the French/Canadian side.
You may be on to something here. My conception of nationalism is, in fact, monocultural… and my concept of national history is predominantly “white” on account of the fact that most Americans were (and are) “white”, and that the origin of this country comes from the English tradition. I do not yet see these as problems to be fixed; they seem appropriate to me.
But assuming “monoculture bias” is a problem, then yes, it does make sense to replace Columbus Day and nothing I have written thus far counters that argument.
~Max