Canceling Columbus Day Points Up Ironies of Multiculturalism

The title explains it all. In 1907 Colorado was the first state in the union to declare Columbus Day an official holiday. Now, there is much controversy on the subject. Should we continue to celebrate Columbus Day? Is he a "symbol" of the genocide perpetrated by white Europeans on Native Americans? On the other hand, is he the first discoverer of this newfound beautiful country that we call America today? This article is another controversy on Christopher Columbus that ties to our class when we studied him and his "unknown" facts in the first week of class. That is why I choose this article, it is proof that there is still much debate on this subject.

In this article, the very first state to start celebrating Columbus Day is now second-guessing their actions. As we have recently learned in Ethnic studies Columbus did discover new land, but he stole, beat, killed, massacred, and burned many Indian villages in the process. Whether Columbus was to blame for all this is up to debate. Even many Indians captured and enslaved other Indians so this practice was not uncommon. Today it is just more significant to us because you are punished for such actions. If Columbus were to blame for this genocide, than he would be assumed to racist right? Well that is where more facts come in to play. There is no evidence in any known journal, document, or paper about Columbus or that Columbus has written him-self that could accuse him of being racist at all.

You read one view about this topic than you read another and your personal views change with the more you get into it and the more information you obtain. After reading Zinn's new spin on Columbus with his "history of conquest, slavery and death"; and with Takaki's further description of the tortures, beatings, and disease spreading colonists, I have concluded one thing. Columbus may have been the fearless leader and the discoverer of the America’s, but overall he was just an adventurous man. He was not an animal or a killing machine. He was simply a man who practiced all the same practices as anyone else in his time. He cannot single handedly be held accountable for the on-slaughter that took place in capturing part of the Americas. I believe he should just been known for discovering Americas with a few capturing on the way. Just because Columbus's men brought along some diseases that the Indians couldn't survive from was not on purpose. They should not cancel a holiday that has been celebrated over 100 years. Even the article points out, “If we can have Martin Luther King Day, and Cinco de Mayo, we ought to be able to have Columbus Day, too. That is true multiculturalism, which is what America has always been about, anyway.” We have learned numerous new facts in the first couple of weeks of Ethnic studies from Takaki's teachings of Indians as canibals that needed to be straightend out to Zinn's knowledge of capturings and burngings that took place. No-one person know the whole and exact truth on what took place. To abolish a holiday that majorities of children have been born, raised, and taught about is absurd.

Abstract (Summary)
The view successfully forwarded by "revisionist" historians of the Americas in recent years is that the statues and tributes to Columbus must be effaced, because he is "symbolic" of the genocide perpetrated by white Europeans on Native Americans.
Racist values and attitudes on the part of whites toward Native Americans reached its apogee in the nineteenth century and was found primarily among Protestant Europeans, who sought to exterminate the "red devils," rather than among Catholics, who intermarried with the local inhabitants and developed a mixed, or "mestizo," culture throughout the Americas. In fact, the Indians of the Southwest invented the expression "white eyes" to distinguish the Anglo-Americans from the Spaniards.
When Italian-Americans pushed for the establishment of Columbus Day at the turn of the century, it was to honor another "forgotten" legacy that had been ignored by the cultural orthodoxy of the day. The "hyphenated Americans" of that day had also been bruised and humiliated. Remember the Ludlow Massacre, when Colorado's Governor sent the National Guard to murder Italian-American (and other) coal miners for the crime of going on strike.

Author(s): Raschke, Carl

Publication title: La Voz. Denver: Oct 5, 1994. Vol. XX, Iss. 340; pg. 6

Document URL: http://0-proquest.umi.com.maurice.bgsu.edu:80/pqdweb?
did=482121131&sid=1&Fmt=3&clientId=3340&RQT=309&VName=PQD