TAKING ISSUE WITH COLUMBUS DAY

Another Columbus Day is upon us, but that depends on where you live. Seattle has now nixed the holiday for Indigenous People’s Day, and has been getting the expected flak for it. Guest Columnist Stephanie Basile writes how not only the flak is undeserved, but there are so many others of Italian heritage more deserving of such tribute. UPDATE: We changed the title because we thought it might look like we were dissing Italian Americans observing their heritage. So our apologies for that.

Stephanie Basile

One of the earliest American figures we learn about in school is Christopher Columbus. We celebrate Columbus Day the second Monday in October, honoring Columbus as the brave discoverer of America. Yep, Columbus is as American as baseball, apple pie, and smallpox-infested blankets.

As we grow and learn, most of us slowly unravel the brutal realities of his actions, puncturing a hole in the made-up version we learn as schoolchildren. Enslavement, mass murder, sexual slavery, rape, dismemberment, and beheading are just a few markers of Columbus’s reign.

Lost your appetite for apple pie? That’s just the tip of the iceberg. Eric Kasum’s piece in the Huffington Post goes into detail as to why if Columbus lived today he would be put on trial for crimes against humanity.

Many choose to re-brand Columbus Day as Indigenous Peoples’ Day, to honor and remember the many who suffered at his hands. More recently, there have been institutional moves in that direction, with city councils in Seattle and Minneapolis passing resolutions to recognize the day as such.


Well, it’s about time, you might say. Finally, we’re moving forward as a nation and coming to terms with the realities of our past. Kudos to those brave people in Seattle and Minneapolis! We are coming to terms with reality.

Well, except for…

The Italian Americans. Yes, my very own paisanos. I admit, my fellow Italian Americans, we don’t always agree. But this? Really? Where did things go so horribly wrong?

Let’s back up for a moment and take stock of what’s happening around the country: a portion of our population is finally growing up and moving to acknowledge the genocide committed against native peoples; school curricula are changing their “Columbus as hero” narrative to a more nuanced approach, being more honest with students about his treatment of Native Americans.

Somehow, while more and more people around the country are realizing that Columbus is not a man to be celebrated, a small group of Italian Americans are getting more vocal than ever about the sanctity of Columbus Day. Yes, that’s right, of all the many people of our heritage to hold up and celebrate, let’s go with the guy who committed one of the most brutal atrocities in our history.

And why celebrate genocide on just one day when we can extend it the whole month? That’s right, folks, October is Italian American Heritage Month. Apparently someone thought: “Gosh, it’s so unfair that we only pay attention to genocidal maniacs one day of the year. They’re really an underappreciated part of our history!” Let’s give ‘em a month. One with 31 whole days.

A visit to the website of the Italian-American Heritage Month Committee shows an appreciation of Italian American culture well beyond Columbus, including a “31 Days of Italians” calendar that in addition to Columbus lists poets, novelists, inventors, and musicians. Another section of their website even has several links to resources on the Sacco and Vanzetti case.

For a brief moment I thought, “Okay, they’re expanding beyond Columbus. That’s good. Hey, maybe we can just take Columbus out of the month altogether and forget this whole thing ever happened.”

Then I saw this: “Seattle council faces backlash from Italian-American group.”

Wha…?

Apparently, Italian Americans in Seattle are pissed. So pissed, in fact, that they have formed their very own political action committee to campaign against the city council members who supported Indigenous People’s Day (which, by the way, is all of them: the vote to recognize Indigenous Peoples’ Day was unanimous). Their fearless leader, an activist named Ralph Fascitelli, told the Seattle Times: “We empathize with the death and destruction of the Native Americans, but we think right now this is almost going too far in terms of political correctness.”

Yes, definitely, too far. What will they want next? I tell you, you drive a group’s entire population to near-extinction, and what do they do? Complain, complain, complain.

Fascitelli goes on to say: “We say today, ‘Basta!’ We say, ‘Enough.’ We say, ‘No more discrimination.’ Not now and not here. We’re talking about an aggressive pushback program.”

Basta indeed.

I don’t know where things wrong, but I do know that the current political views of a loud minority do not represent me. In fact, they repulse me.

Italian Americans have made wonderful contributions to society. We should be proud of that. But those who choose to ignore the past and continue to perpetuate the desperate lie that Columbus was some kind of Italian American hero need to get real and face facts.

As an Italian American, I say it’s time we hold up real Italian American heroes:

Arturo Giovannitti (1884-1959) – A union leader, political activist, and poet, he was one of the main organizers of the 1912 IWW Lawrence Textile Strike.

Ralph Fasanella (1914-1997) – A self-taught painter, Fasanella grew up in working class neighborhoods in NYC’s Lower East Side, working his whole life until his paintings gained notoriety after being featured on the cover of New York magazine in 1972. He fought with the Abraham Lincoln Brigade in the Spanish Civil War in the late 1930s. His paintings depicted urban New York City life, workers in factories and other workplace settings, union meetings, and baseball games. His work is prominently displayed in union halls around the country.

Mario Savio (1942-1996) – A political activist and leader in the Berkeley Free Speech movement of the 1960s. He participated in Freedom Summer in 1964, going to Mississippi to register African Americans to vote.

These are but a few. Who are your Italian American heroes?