While people in the streets of New York City celebrated Italians, Italian-Americans, or simply the fact they did not have work on Columbus Day, the mood was more somber at the American Indian Community House near the city’s SoHo area.
"For us, this is not a day to celebrate Columbus, an invader who massacred our people. We celebrate our struggle and survival," said Elvira Colorado, of the Otomi tribe, who works in the communications and information department at the center.
Rather than organize protests on Monday, the center sponsored an international forum titled "El Salvador, 1932: Historical Memory Justice, Identity and Indigenous Peoples Rights." The forum revisits the 1932 indigenous uprising against El Salvador’s government in which thousands died.
"To a certain extent protests work, because I’ve done a lot," Colorado said. "But it’s also important to educate people about the issues—Columbus Day, destruction of sacred sites, appropriation of land."
Members of the Denver branch of the American Indian Movement (AIM) took a different, more aggressive approach to opposing the holiday. Hundreds of protestors from the group, joined by the Transform Columbus Day Alliance, took to Denver’s streets October 10 to protest the Sons of Italy-New Generation Columbus Day parade, known as the "Convoy of Conquest." According to the Denver AIM press release, "the Convoy is a celebration of genocide against the indigenous peoples of the Americas, and it elevates the theft of our homelands and the murder of our people to national holiday status . . . this is intolerable and unjustifiable."
Two hundred and thirty of the protestors were arrested.
Because Denver was the birthplace of the Columbus Day holiday, it has become a hub for protests and campaigns against the event.
The Red Earth Women’s Alliance in Denver organized a Four Directions All Nations march as an alternative to the Columbus parade on October 8.
Olivia Loria, a member of the alliance, attended the evening march. "It was a celebration of all peoples," she said. "I’m an Italian-American and I don’t believe in celebrating Columbus."
American Indians protest the idea of Columbus as "discoverer" with good reason, said Andrew Decker, communications consultant for Columbus Citizens Foundation in New York which hosted its 60th parade this year. "He discovered America for Europeans and changed the course of world history," Decker said. "He was courageous and visionary, but it’s silly to say he discovered this land [because it was already inhabited]."
New York’s parade celebrates Italian pride and Columbus as an explorer, not as a discoverer, Decker said. The foundation raises money through the parade and a gala to provide scholarships for students in the New York area.
But Vernon Bellecourt, member of the Anishinabe Ojibwa tribe and executive committee of AIM’s Grand Governing Council, says that referencing Columbus as a courageous visionary is tantamount to saying the same about Adolf Hitler.
"People say they are not responsible for the actions of their ancestors. They are responsible because genocide is continuing on. Guatemala is a continuation of the genocidal legacy of Columbus," Bellecourt said, referring to the United States’ support for Guatemala Security Forces during that country’s 36-year civil war.
AIM usually holds a protest at the 15-foot-tall statue of Columbus in front of Union Station in Washington, D.C., said Bellecourt, who was not able to attend this year. "I personally had my blood extracted to throw on the statue one year," he said.
"Our campaign is finally catching on," Bellecourt said, noting that the state of South Dakota now celebrates Native American Day rather than Columbus Day.
But in New York, the Columbus Citizens Foundation has no plans to stop their parade anytime soon. In fact, the parade has grown in the past two years, Decker said. "The parade has gotten better," he said, "and people are learning the Italian culture is not just pasta and pizza."
