tyrant” and uncovers his “unimaginable cruelty”. He continues to describe that on multiple occasions, our nation’s founder kidnapped women, enslaved and abused Native Americans, and allowed young girls to be sold into slavery. At this point, individuals worldwide can’t help but wonder if Christopher Columbus may have done more harm than good.
In light of recent controversies, many have proposed that Columbus Day should be eradicated or repurposed as Indigenous People’s Day. Amsterdam News outlines that while some New York legislators legislators, such as Jessica Ramos and Marcela Mitaynes, see the “celebration of colonialism [as] an opportunity to reveal historical truths about the genocide and oppression of indigenous people in the Americas", others, such as Angelo Morinello, believe Columbus Day should be left alone as it is important to “consider the time in history … [and] celebrate the bravery of sailing to the unknown”. Furthermore, according to NJ.com, a chairman of the Ocean County Columbus Day Parade Committee, Michael Blandina, passionately protested that terminating Columbus Day on the school calendar is “discrimination against the Italian-American community.”
Throughout our years of education, we have all grown to love Columbus Day, the federal holiday that has kindly allowed us to take a Monday off to honor Christopher Columbus, an Italian explorer who was one of the first Europeans to discover our lands. However, this year we noticed our school district was one of the few in the area with open doors on October 10th. As a state with one of the highest concentrations of Italian-Americans, our residents here in New Jersey battle whether this change is a necessary statement or an insult to Italian culture.
So what even is Columbus Day? Every year we celebrate this day on the second Monday of October to commemorate an Italian navigator and explorer, Christopher Columbus, who “founded” America in 1492. Although he was looking for a more efficient water route from Europe to Asia, the navigator found himself in the Bahamas and mistook it for India, therefore falsely labeling Native Americans as “Indians”. His findings have since caused the colonization of American land, in addition to the destruction of lives, culture, and freedom across the “new” continent. In fact, Dylan Matthews, a senior correspondent and lead writer for Vox, exposes Columbus as a “homicidal
COLUMBUS
THE SHIP HAS SAILED...
By Sera Volsky