Columbus Day

Today is Columbus Day (celebrated). Or Indigenous Peoples Day (in Berkeley).

The irony over the annual tussle over what Columbus Day means, whether it’s a celebration of a bold pioneer or genocidal imperialism, is that the holiday initially set out to show Americans that Italian-Americans weren’t all bad. Times were hard for a lot of Italian immigrants after Ellis Island. They were smelly, garlic-obsessed papists to a lot of “native” Americans. To show the country that not only were some quite bright, but that in fact, the country wouldn’t exist without them, “Columbus Day” was born around the turn of the century.

Columbus Day was a pretty big deal when I was growing up in San Francisco. At least a quarter of my elementary school was Italian American. Columbus Day was “Festa” time, when Old San Francisco celebrated its now mythical love affair with Italian heritage. As someone who has rarely found a pasta he didn’t like, this worked for me. For a lot of my schoolmates, it was “Kiss Me, I’m Italian” time. For one of my early girlfriends, I did just that.

“Indigenous Peoples Day” bugs me in part because it misses the historical mark, to be discussed below. But also because it makes no sense. If you’re born somewhere, you’re indigenous. “Native” makes little sense either, for the same reason. If you look at human migration patterns, we’re all “non-indigenous.” Even the Indians. They came from Asia, and there is some evidence that the Sioux and others we know from John Wayne movies may have displaced other migrants who reached here before them.

The importance of Columbus isn’t in why he came. It’s in the fact that others followed. There’s growing evidence that a number of folks, including East Asians, may have sailed to this hemisphere before he did. And everyone agrees that the Vikings settled the coast before the “natives” ran them off (silly Norsemen didn’t wait until the Europeans got gunpowder). But after Columbus came the wave.

The English brought wives. The French and Spanish didn’t. (The fact that the English settlements by far did the best is testament to the power of the girl you bring home to momma.) The result was the Western Hemisphere we know today. You don’t have to like Columbus, and he certainly wasn’t very likeable, to acknowledge the –effect- his misguided little trip had on history.

It’s also, if you’re a public worker, it's a good excuse for nice day off during Indian summer. I live in the state capital of California and it's tough at the mines when every third person you meet is living a long weekend.

Anyways, I’m off for now. I think there’s some leftover lasagna in the fridge …