I don’t know about most people. My wife is a public school teacher, and today is a regular class day. It’s the only day of the year that I get off, but she doesn’t.
ETA: I am in California, in the Bay Area.
ETA2: We only started to get this as a holiday after we merged with a company based in New Hampshire, which had always observed it. Prior to that we did not observe it.
That’s my thinking, too. My heavily Italian home town still has a parade, and fireworks for Columbus Day.
It was pretty big when I lived in Miami, but among the Hispanic population. I’ve got a poster from the first year I lived there ('94) announcing the celebrations of *el Día de la Hispanidad *- it struck me as absolutely hilarious, because by that time talking about *la Raza *or la Hispanidad had become completely un-PC in Spain.
Poor old Chris really got screwed. The 500th anniversary of his trip came and went with barely a whimper.
It was a bigger holiday than it is now. In part, I think this is because people have started to look at Columbus’ legacy in a different light. In the 80s and 90s I can remember people protesting at Columbus day parades and splashing fake blood on a statue of Columbus (in Chicago?). There was even a Sopranos episode about such protests.
I guess that’s the key. Michigan has some Italian-Americans, but they’re not really a significant ethnic group around here. I had never even heard of parades on Columbus Day until I started this thread.
I’ve never heard of it NOT being a holiday. Working on that day is inconceivable.
But I’ve never witnessed any celebrations for it, and yesterday I was in a town where they have a parade for everything.