The good news is President Trump has announced that the Federal government will no longer conflate Indigenous Peoples Day with Columbus Day. The great visionary who joined two worlds in 1492 will be restored to his noble station in Federal observance. The bad news is that this observance won’t necessarily trickle down to state, local, or academic communities.
For Italian Americans who still revere Columbus—there are plenty who jumped ship years ago—Trump’s announcement is a shot in the arm. We finally have a powerful voice in Washington. But restoring the 30 or so statues of Columbus that were torn down by street mobs across the nation in 2020 will be a dream too far.
Many community leaders realize that the Italian American population no longer dominates the neighborhoods where those statues stood. Some Columbus statues are being relocated to safer neighborhoods or protective custody (like a warehouse?). A recent strategy is to replace Columbus statues with less controversial role-models like Mother Cabrini or the symbolic “immigrant.” Why bother? They pale in comparison to 1492.
The veneration of Columbus began in 1892 on the 400th anniversary of his arrival in the New World. It came on the heels of the 1891 lynching of eleven Italians in New Orleans. The U.S. president at the time was Benjamin Harrison and he was truly ashamed of the murders. In fact, although it was a local crime Harrison used his Executive Branch funds to pay the families reparations when Congress refused. To restore relations with Italy and Italian Americans, Harrison reminded the nation that 1892 should honor Columbus, the Italian navigator. Although the lead time was short, the coming 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago would be titled the Columbia Exhibition. The psychology worked and both the nation and Italian Americans had a hero they could agree on.
We should use President Trump’s support of the holiday to deepen our commitment to 1492. Trump may be pandering to our vote but if you understand him at all, he is really restoring Columbus the explorer and entrepreneur—he made Spain great!
We are in a culture war and Columbus has been the dividing line between traditional values and social experimentation. While we see 1492 as joining two worlds and unifying the globe, the other side believes the world was perfect in 1491. Every continent had its own diseases, its own plants and animals. Indigenous peoples lived peaceful idyllic lives. Columbus ‘ruined’ all that. Sure.
Author/activist Christopher Rufo understands this mindset as indicative of a culture war. I have written about Rufo’s work with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in weeding out WOKE in state schools and universities. In a recent story in the Wall Street Journal Rufo explained how another Italian, Antonio Gramsci, pioneered the Left’s cultural agenda.
Gramsci was born in Sardinia and suffered with a hunchback that confined him to sedentary work. He co-founded the Italian Communist Party in 1921 and was jailed by Mussolini in 1926. Throughout his incarceration he wrote prolifically. At first, he was puzzled by Mussolini’s popularity with the working masses when economics should have made them all communists. It was then that he understood how Fascism embraced the traditional society and Catholicism of the Italian people. Bucking Marx and Lenin, Gramsci advocated subversion by culture—schools, universities, and the media. “Gramsci, in a sense, provides the diagram of how politics works,” according to Rufo. In short, change the culture and you change the political power.
In the context of Columbus Day, we must not depend on a presidential term in office to keep alive our greatest hero. We need more than parades. There needs to be a part of our family culture to honor Columbus and the great explorers, even a special food on Columbus Day like Pesto Genovese. Young children and grandchildren should be receiving Columbus Day greeting cards with gift certificates to excite their expectations. We should also ballyhoo June 24th when Giovanni Caboto landed on North America in 1497 to claim the continent for England – the reason we speak English is worth some kind of credit.
We have a bridge for Verrazzano, two continents named for Vespucci, and plenty of cities named for Columbus, but Columbus Day still needs a boost. -JLM
Yes, I agree to return Colombus to a visible forefront of today, once again, large and crowing Italian Community consisting of many well-educated entrepreneurs
In San Francisco his statue was removed secretly from the hill, Coit Tower, from North Beach (still the Italian neighborhood). The statue is hidden away.
Let’s also add the importance of Bank of America and AP Giannini who after the 1906 earthquake handed out recovery loans on a “handshake” (una stretta di manu) a reflection of honesty and integrity (my handshake is like gold). His statue is now tucked away in the North Beach branch of the B of A.
I will be attending a dinner meeting with the Italian American Bar Association in San Francisco tomorrow. Let’s see if the new, visionary mayor of San Francisco can bring back both Statues if we raise our voices, in Italiano..alzare la voce.
As we all know Columbus discovered America. What people do not know is how Howard Zinn maligned Columbus in his book “A PEOPLES HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES” which was not accepted by the American Historic Society because its contents are not accurate or historical. Unfortunately, they are using his textbook in many schools today giving
Impressionable students a false sense of history. The following statement attributed to Columbus: “They would make good servants and of good skill, for I see that they repeat very quickly whatever was told to them.” was in reference to the Carib tribe and why they would want to capture the Taino natives and use them as slaves and food. The Caribs were a cannibalistic tribe. The Taino’s had saved Columbus’s crew and supplies from his ship that hit a reef. In gratitude, he promised the Taino chief that he would, by “the sward or by chains,” put an end to the Caribs attacks. Zinn distorted many of the passages in Columbus’s log to made him appear as an evil man. Christopher Columbus was a religious individual. When he encountered the natives on his first voyage, he told his men to treat the natives with kindness and respect. He told them “If they give you something, you give them something in return, that through kindness and not violence will you be able to convert these people to Christianity and save their souls from eternal damnation”. Mary Grabar’s book “Debunking Howard Zinn” points out how his anti-American views distorted history. Howard Zinn is why America has turned against Columbus.
All true! The problem is that the other side doesn’t want to hear the clarifications or other details of 1492. As we know, when Columbus returned on his second voyage he found all 39 men he had to leave on Hispaniola murdered. Not all natives were welcoming, but Columbus chose not to take revenge.