Why is Columbus Day celebrated in the United States?

October 12th has become a contentious date, to say the least. More and more US cities and states are replacing Columbus Day to honor instead the indigenous people in the Americas.

On the one hand, it commemorates the arrival of Europeans in the Americas, one of the most important events in the history of humanity. It’s impossible to imagine the world today without this transcendental moment.

On the other hand, it was the beginning for colonialism and imperialism as we know it, with European invaders systematically wiping out the indigenous population in the Americas.

One could try to say that Christopher Columbus was just a man acting according to his time and place in history, except that contemporary testimonies describe his actions subduing the native population as particularly cruel.

However, Columbus Day in the United States has less to do with the Spanish colonization of the Americas and more about Italian Americans trying to find their place in US society.

During the second half of the 19th century and well into the 20th century, large waves of immigrants arrive to the United States from Europe, particularly from Ireland, Italy, and Central Europe.

White Protestant Americans would see these immigrants with distrust, considering them culturally and racially inferior.

In the face of prosecution, Italian Americans sought an icon in which they could honor their Italian heritage as well as their connection with their new home in the Americas. They found it in Christopher Columbus.

Image: @kev01218 / Unsplash

The first Columbus Day celebrations began among Italian immigrants in New York City in the 1860s.

Pictured: Columbus Circle in New York in the 1920s.

The White House website explains that the first official Columbus Day was created by President Benjamin Harrison in 1892 after 11 Italian Americans were lynched in New Orleans.

The US Congress first passed a resolution to celebrate Columbus Day in the 1930s, after much lobbying by the Knights of Columbus.

Since 1971, Columbus Day has been celebrated as a federal holiday in the United States the second Monday of every October.

Nowadays, Italian-Americans have been virtually assimilated in every space of US society. It’s hard to think in US society without them.

You want to grab something quick to eat? You get some pizza. A great movie director? Martin Scorsese. A Hollywood classic? The Godfather. A terrific singer? Madonna.

Meanwhile, indigenous population in the United States, Canada, Mexico and elsewhere in the Americas tend to live in poverty and excluded from mainstream society, plus there's constant threat of losing their customs.

This begs the question: Has Columbus Day as we know it outlived its usefulness?

Image: @kev01218 / Unsplash