Five Ways to Observe Columbus Day
Five Ways to Observe
Columbus Day
It wasn’t long ago—relative to the age of the universe—that
Christopher Columbus defied the horizon and set off in search of a passage East.
As we’ve learned in the dominant, perpetuated myth about this series of events,
he accidentally discovered a new continent. Ever the salesman, mildly good at
sailing and terrible at navigation, he convinced his fellow sailors they were
in India and misidentified the exotic people he encountered with a misnomer
that sticks to this day.
Columbus’s return to Europe heralded a great discovery that
set off a wild fury of exploration, exploitation, and imperialism. The “new
world,” neverminding that it had been inhabited by humans for over ten thousand
years, became a plucking ground for riches, resources, and renown. Europeans
that followed Columbus’s expedition brought with them diseases and conquest
that ravaged the indigenous peoples of what would later be named “Americas.”
Over the next 500 years, this America would grow to be the
richest, most powerful nation on Earth. This America would become the shining beacon
of hope for the world. This America has become a successful experiment in
democracy, liberty, multiculturalism, opportunity, technology, and generosity.
Americans fought, sacrificing lives and riches, for the protection of these
ideals around the world.
Before we were the heirs of Washington, Jefferson, and
Hamilton, we were the heirs of Christopher Columbus.
Over the next 500 years, this America also built upon the
atrocities pioneered by Columbus. The precedent for exploiting the indigenous
people of the Americas was repeated over and over again. Land was taken. Riches
were appropriated. The staples of a once-thriving civilization—herds, fertile
land, sacred spaces—were either destroyed or confiscated. The heirs of
Columbus, now calling themselves Americans, enslaved, murdered, and
marginalized whole groups of people in their march toward becoming this shining
beacon of hope for the world.
America cannot celebrate Columbus for the former without
rightly acknowledging other appropriate celebrations alongside Columbus Day.
Here is a list of five alternative observances that can be paired with
celebrations of Columbus’s legacy.
National Monday off Day: Let’s be honest. The
more distantly past and personally disconnected we are from an event or
celebration, the more space there is to re-interpret it. In many ways, Columbus
Day is as special as a national “day off” as it is a specific celebration of
Columbus’s important place in our history. We have a few of these federally
prescribed holidays each year. Governments and banks close to provide a welcome
respite from toil and labor. While on the surface it may seem a cynical
approach to a holiday, it foils nicely with Labor Day which occurs a month
earlier, and in a rather postmodern, twenty-first century way, celebrates the
idea of celebration itself.
Myths and Legends Day: The story of Columbus
being the first European—as was taught to us in fifth grade history—has value,
not in its verifiable fact, but in what it stands for. Likewise, the notion
that all people thought the world was flat is equally laughable as a statement
of “fact.” European Christianity taming savages? Such myths and legends around
Columbus’s voyages do stand as symbols of a new era of exploration, discovery,
and experimentation that highlight Europe’s emergence from the middle ages.
Rather than discount the value of these events based on the verifiable “facts”
uncovered by recent historians, we can acknowledge that we need myths and
legends to coalesce around to better understand the “stories” of us.
Indigenous People’s Day: This is a fitting pair
to Columbus Day and has actually been adopted as a holiday—in some places called
“Native American Day” or “First Peoples’ Day” by many cities, states,
provinces, and countries around the world. The number of municipalities
embracing this day is growing rapidly. First designed as a protest fueled by
the modern historical reassessments of Columbus’s legacy, it can also be a day
of reflection and atonement for the deplorable actions of Americans who—in
their quest to control the full continent—mistreated Native American nations,
decimating their cultures and sovereignty.
We could also treat it as a positive celebration of the rich cultures
and enduring legacies of the continent’s first citizens. Further, it can be a
day to reflect on the effects of such remarkable Native Americans as Black
Kettle, Osceola, and Buffalo Bird Woman.
Immigrants Day: Celebrations of Columbus’s
“discovery” of America took place as far back as 1792. The history of Columbus
Day as a national holiday actually has its roots in American Immigrant
communities who were—during the 1870s and 1880s—poorly treated, mostly because
of their unpopular Catholic faith, but also because they looked and sounded
different. Eventually these groups would gain acceptance and be subsumed into
the mainstream culture of America’s melting pot—or salad bowl, if you prefer. Even
today, as different immigrant populations from new and exotic parts of the
world arrive on the shores of our nation, as they seek asylum or freedom or
riches, a reminder that we are a nation of immigrants wouldn’t hurt. Like many other minority groups throughout
American history, visibility is a great first step toward understanding and
integration. Such a holiday would be a perfect reflection that, at some point
in our lineage, we are ALL immigrants.
American Atonement Day: Americans set aside a
full day to give thanks for all of the bounties that have been heaped upon us.
Thanksgiving is as necessary and culturally-ingrained a holiday as Independence
Day. We rightly observe Thanksgiving as a secular celebration of something
beyond us and before us for which we should celebrate with gratitude. Built,
still, upon myths and legends and how we’d like to view ourselves in the prism
of our collective history, Thanksgiving reflects upon a passivity that led to
our success as a nation. A national day of atonement—An American Yom Kippur—would
be a well-placed point from which to view those regrettable things we, as a
nation did, even as we were being blessed in other ways. Quite aside from
dwelling upon slavery as a national horror, quite aside from dwelling on our historical
treatment of Native Americans, immigrants, gays, Catholics, Muslims, the poor,
the disabled, and other groups that have not fully realized the bounties for
which we can give thanks, we can dwell on how we may have fallen short—on an
individual as well as collective level—of “earning” our pieces of the gifts of
America’s potential. Were we to dwell upon these things every day, we would be
paralyzed in grief. Setting aside a day for reflection on how we have failed,
even as we have achieved so much as a lead-up to Thanksgiving would be a timely
and sanguine preparation for the holiday season.
Columbus Day is no less relevant today as it was two hundred
years ago. It has accumulated more meaning and, when paired with these
additional reflections, gives Americans a greater and broader view of who we
are: worth celebrating, worth grieving, worth accepting that we still have much
more to discover.
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