There’s no real debate to be had. This is a holiday that flew under everyone’s radar for years and years, until conservatives realized it was grist for the culture-war mill. Now, each year around this time, they spend the holiday preening and strutting about their undying love for an Italian who blundered into the Caribbean under the Spanish flag and never even set foot in mainland North America.
It’s up to legislatures to decide what they want to celebrate. I support the ones that recognize that Columbus was a genocidal moron, and designate alternate holidays as counterprogramming to Columbus Day. Either way, there’s really no debating the facts. The only debate is how we should feel about those facts.
My opinion? Scrap Columbus Day. Move Thanksgiving to the first week in October, and set it on a Friday or Monday like Jesus intended all American holidays to be.
If we move Thanksgiving to early October, I’ll have to stop hosting it. I’m still doing farmers’ markets, and way too busy with the actual harvest.
Part of what’s being celebrated at Thanksgiving is that the harvest is over. Hitting the right date, of course, depends on where you are; but early October’s way too early for just about all of the USA.
Of course, most people in the country are disconnected enough from any actual harvest that they’re quite likely to think scheduling some other major event in the middle of it is a great idea.
I also don’t see what this has to do with conservatives. It was President Biden who, seemingly out of left field, made news by recognizing Indigenous People’s Day in a separate proclamation. (Although, Maybe President Trump did something earlier, I don’t remember it making the news.)
That’s something I didn’t think about. The harvests here in Florida are a bit wacky, we always have something growing. Fresh oranges are available outside July, August, and maybe September.
I personally was taught that Columbus Day is a celebration of the meeting of the two hemispheres, and also a day to recognize that this spelled doom for millions of Native Americans. I don’t know whether I just had good social studies teachers, a lot of people seem to think the holiday is about Christopher Columbus the individual. I didn’t learn about the Italian-American heritage component or the Indigenous People’s Day movement until adulthood, possibly because I am not aware of an Italian-American or Native American community where I live.
I think it would be possible to merge the ‘meeting of Europeans and indigenous peoples’ celebration with the celebration of Native American culture and recognition of their tragedies. That could encompass Leif Erikson as well. I am having trouble reconciling the Italian-American heritage with such a merged holiday, though. And given the history of Italian-American discrimination I’m not sure if it’s morally consistent to take away their ‘day’ to recognize another historically disadvantaged group.
ETA: But the scale of suffering is totally imbalanced. Native Americans have, in absolute terms, suffered far more than Italian-Americans or possibly any other group except African Americans. Italian-Americans are basically white these days although their parents/grandparents may have faced overt discrimination and we still have mafia stereotypes, etc. I have mixed feelings on the subject overall.
Out of left field? It’s been gaining steam for the last decade+. 13 states recognize the holiday in early October as Indigenous People’s Day or Native American Day instead of Columbus Day.
Yes, well, I & people in my life must be very poor at following these trends. Juneteenth also came as a surprise, I had never heard of it before the media coverage of George Floyd protests. So take my opinion with a grain of salt.
Here in the Chicago area, which has a lot of people of Polish heritage, Casimir Pulaski Day (the first Monday in March, proximate to Pulaski’s birthday) has served that role for several decades. It’s also an official state holiday in this state (Illinois).
Of all the various conservative culture war “hills to die on” Columbus Day is the one that is most egregious. That both the actions Columbus himself and the results of the conquest he started are something truly awful and not something to be celebrated is pretty much incontestable. This is not some modern revisionist interpretation based on newly uncovered accounts.
I think recognizing it as a day to commemorate the indigenous people who were wiped out, rather than the guy who started wiping them out, is entirely appropriate. I mean we commemorate the start of WW2 but we don’t call it “Hitler Day”, and tha’ts an good comparison IMO. No one is arguing that Columbus arriving in the Americas was an epoch defining event, but as epoch-defining events go more like the start of the Nazi invasion of Europe than the discovery of Penicillin.
Leif Erikson Day isn’t particularly controversial AFAIK, if you want to eat Smorgsabrot and wear a anachronistic Viking helmet, go for it.
What? Most sovereign states in the American hemisphere are predicated on the conquests that followed Columbus’s voyages. I mean, that’s like saying the results of Chinggis Khan’s (&successors) conquests are not something to be celebrated in the countries of Asia.
Yeah and that’s part of our history we can’t deny. The political entities that form the modern Americas are a direct result of a genocidal invasion started by Christopher Columbus. That doesn’t mean we have to celebrate it. Most of the good things about the post-war political system in Europe can be traced back to the Nazi conquest of Europe. But that doesn’t mean it should be celebrated.
I partially get what you’re saying… in my opinion, recognizing that the U.S. owes its existence to the voyages of Columbus is a core part of our national identity. Columbus and his successors committed atrocities, even in the eyes of the Spanish crown at the time, and that history is an important part of our national identity. Columbus day has never, to me, been about glorifying Columbus the individual. It was always a day to look at the good and the bad and to own it.
I’m concerned that if we replace Columbus day with a dedicated celebration of Native American culture, we will gradually lose that part of our national identity. Without a high profile holiday I fear it will fade from the collective memory after grade school - people won’t identify with Columbus or the conquistadores that followed him, they will identify with the Native Americans who have the federal holiday. Maybe that would be a good thing, I don’t know… maybe you can explain that it would be better if the national identity embraced Native Americans rather than Columbus… I admit on my part, this is ultimately fear of change.
Traditionally, or at least overtly, the US has been a Civic Nationalist state. Columbus Day, unlike the 4th of July, Presidents’ Day, Memorial Day, etc. doesn’t serve that tradition. As certain forces have worked to shift the US to become their ethno-religious state, the issue went into heat.
Do you really identify with the Spanish Conquistadors? What aspect of the Spanish Conquistadors forms which part of your identity? Is it like a team-jersey thing, or do you really fancy yourself some sort of conqueror?
I’m not mocking, I think you’d see this as a pretty flimsy rationalization if you interrogated it thoroughly.
Fear of a bank holiday getting a different name? What change scares you here?
Okay, if you aren’t mocking me… it’s not like a team jersey thing. But when they went over the Columbus, the conquistadores, the Pilgrims in Thanksgiving that later fought King Philip’s War, Andrew Jackson, the Indian Wars, &etc. in school, we were the conquerors, we were the oppressors. We were not the Native Americans, the Native Americans suffered at our hands and we built our country off of their misfortune. (ETA:) Columbus Day is a reminder of that heritage, of exploration and conquering, it celebrates the meeting of peoples from each hemisphere and reminds us of the consequences.
And I say this as someone whose family, on both sides, immigrated to the U.S. in (I think) the twentieth century.
Admittedly there are other much more important things to be worried about than Columbus Day. But that’s the topic du jour (or at least it was yesterday), and just because there are other more important things to be worried about does not mean I am totally indifferent to scrapping Columbus Day.
This is a hell of a thing to consider part of your identity. Your heritage perhaps, but your identity?
Columbus claimed land for Spain. He had virtually nothing to do with English colonies! The credit for that “discovery” belongs to John Cabot. It’s not as if Jamestown couldn’t have happened without Columbus.
I didn’t say it was unimportant. I asked what motivates you to feel fear specifically, as opposed to some other emotion. As you’ve laid it out above, honestly it feels like you fear the loss of seeing yourself as part of the conquering group, which is kinda… ewww.
And honestly, if Columbus Day is changed to Indigenous People’s Day, do you really think Columbus will be forgotten? He’ll still be very much in that story, just not as a hero.