Happy Indigenous Peoples' Day

When I was a kid, I loved Columbus Day. 

A month-and-change into the school year, it was a nice break. 

It didn't give us a three-day weekend. That change didn't come until I was out of school. Still, a day off's a day off, no matter what day of the week October 12th fell on. And, unlike the welcome little oddball holy days that parochial schools got off, there were absolutely no obligations that came along with Columbus Day. No having to get up and go to Mass before enjoy some slack time. Nope. Columbus Day was blessedly secular. Loll in bed, followed by not much of anything. If it was a nice day, the family might go out for a spin, as back in the day, my father got the day off. 

Columbus Day was, as I wrote in 2011, a Nifty Little Holiday. Nifty until we came to the realization that Christopher Columbus was a colossal P.O.S. 

Given Christopher Columbus' status as a P.O.S., and not the benevolent sailor who crossed the ocean blue in the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria, I thought it might make sense to rebrand the holiday as Immigrants Day. After all, even if he didn't stick around, his exploration did help pave the way for making us a nation of immigrants. And it would allow us to still pay homage to the descendants of Italian immigrants, for whom Columbus Day has always been a pretty big deal. 

I lost that argument. Many cities and states now celebrate the day-formerly-known-as-Columbus-Day as Indigenous Peoples' Day. Boston made the switch to honoring indigenous people, but I believe that Massachusetts is still in the Columbus Day

column. (A day celebrating the pre-Columbian population certainly makes sense, but I'd still like to see a day honoring immigrants - especially in the present climate when so many seem to view immigrants as the enemy, unwelcome on our shores, an existential threat. In late August, on a boat tour in NYC, we passed near to the Statue of Liberty, which never fails to move me - this daughter of a mother who landed on Ellis Island as a toddler - to near-tears. Maybe we can swap out Thanksgiving for Indigenous, and turn Indigenous/Columbus into Immigrants' Day. You heard it here.)

In 2020, my holiday post - when the holiday fell on October 12: the old, original Columbus Day date - dealt with the decapitation of the statue of Christopher Columbus that stood in Boston's Columbus Park. Off with his head! Out with the statue!

Last year, Pink Slip celebrated Not Columbus Day, highlighting a statue of Columbus that still stands in Worcester, whose City Council last year tabled a decision to remove it from its prominent spot in front of Union Station, just around the corner from Worcester's historically Italian neighborhood.

This year, I will be doing my usual Monday thing, volunteering at St. Francis House. If it's nice out, after my time at SFH, I might walk down to (the still named Columbus) Columbus Park, which abuts Boston's North End, our historically Italian neighborhood. Maybe I'll pick up a sub - and Italian, of course - at Bricco's. Which I get isn't that indigenous-honoring a thing to do, but will put me in a bit of a celebratory mood.

Happy Indigenous Peoples' Day.