Indigenous People's Day

My father was born on Columbus Day.  His parents named him Valentine.  In fairness to them, however, Columbus Day wasn't Columbus Day in the United States until 1937, sixteen years after my father was born.

As a child growing up in the 50s, Columbus Day was as big a deal as any of the patriotic holidays, with art projects that consisted of making construction paper cut-outs of the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria and singing In fourteen-hundred-and-ninety-two / Columbus sailed the ocean blue / He sailed and sailed and sailed and sailed / to find this land for me and you.  If anything was certain in our world, it was that Christopher Columbus discovered America.

How gullible and naive we were!  It's a different world today, and the fact that Columbus didn't discover a land that was already inhabited by Native Americans and was responsible for the genocide of said natives means that the entire idea of celebrating him and his accidental "discovery" has been called into question.  Several states do not recognize Columbus Day at all, among them Alaska, Hawaii, Oregon and South Dakota.  The movement to change the day to Indigenous People's Day began in Berkeley, California in 1992, the 500th anniversary of Columbus' voyage.  Several cities, including Minneapolis, Portland OR, and Seattle, have followed suit.  There are over 30 cities and towns in the United States named Columbus, but so far, there have been no name changes suggested.

I am a traditionalist in many ways, but I am also a believer that wrongs must be righted when possible.  This one's an easy one.  I mean, it's not like we're changing Christmas to WalMart Day or anything.  I love the idea of celebrating Native Americans instead of the man who tried to kill them off.

Before writing this blog post, I watched John Oliver's sketch Columbus Day: How Is This Still a Thing?  Of course it's funny.  (It's John Oliver.)  But it's also spot on.  Google it and treat yourself.

Happy Indigenous People's Day!