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Ahh, it must be September, the month that rewards us for putting up with Colorado the rest of the year. The aspen, willows and scrub oak are turning. The tangy aroma of roasting chiles fills the air. The nights are clear and the mornings are crisp and the days are warm. The mountain trails and fishing holes and campgrounds are serene and uncrowded following the departure of the summer hordes. And in Denver, preparations are underway for the annual Columbus Day war.
On one side, there are Italian-Americans who see the parade as an expression of ethnic pride. On the other, there are Native Americans who see any celebration of Columbus as the continuation of an assault that's been underway for half a millennium.
There's a tragic irony here, in that the celebration of
Columbus Day was started by an oppressed minority. A
century ago, Italian-Americans in Colorado weren't exactly
white
-- they endured all manner of bigotry from the
dominant culture.
Like many towns and cities in Colorado, Salida had a substantial number of Italian-Americans then; always looking for cheaper labor, the mines, smelters and railroads recruited extensively in Italy.
The immigrants here were segregated on the wrong side
of the tracks
on the west side of town. Local
newspapers of the time frequently referred to idle
dagoes
who were believed to be the source of most petty
crime in town when they weren't spreading loathsome
diseases.
Given this hostile environment, it's not surprising to read that Italian immigrants were lynched in Gunnison in 1890 and in Denver in 1893.
But something else happened in 1893. Chicago was host
to a world's fair, which was christened the World's
Columbian Exposition,
as though the astonishing
19th-century growth and power of that city was the
culmination of what Columbus had set in motion four
centuries earlier.
That put a positive spin on Columbus, and by a convoluted extension, Italians in general. (The extension is convoluted because there was no Italy when Columbus was born in Genoa -- there were just a bunch of feuding city-states on the peninsula which not be unified until 1870. During his adult life, Columbus sailed for Portugal and Spain, and fought against Genoa.)
Thus the beginnings of Columbus Day a century ago, as an expression of ethnic pride by an oppressed minority group.
But if you listen to Glenn Morris of the American Indian
Movement, you get a different view. Columbus personally
began the trans-Atlantic slave trade in both Indians and
Africans. To say there should be veneration of Columbus is
to say these are the values we respect and the values we
expect our children to embrace. To us, that's
reprehensible.
Of course it is, but Morris omits a few things. One is
that slavery flourished in the Americas before Columbus
arrived; consult any history of the Incas for particulars.
And he presumes that celebrating Columbus Day is a form of
veneration.
We always did something for Columbus Day when I was in grade school 40 years ago. We learned that although he was an excellent mariner, he was wrong in his estimation of the size of the earth, and that he thought he was near Japan when he blundered into the Americas. We learned that he was greedy and arrogant and a terrible administrator, but that the world had changed forever because of his courage and persistence.
We got a fairly well-rounded view during our
grade-school Columbus Days; we certainly weren't taught to
venerate
him, nor were we encouraged to start our
own trans-Atlantic slave-hauling enterprises, no matter
what Morris thinks.
The annual Columbus Day war in Denver has its virtues, in that it inspires us to ponder a history that we all share, regardless of our enthnicity.
But we should remember that it's not a universal holiday. When my older daughter Columbine was an exchange student in Iceland eight years ago, she mentioned in class one autumn day that the date was a holiday in her country: Columbus Day.
Who's he?
her classmates asked, and she explained
that he was the European discoverer of America.
Nonsense, they said, since their capital had a prominent statue of Leif Eriksson, and everyone knew he that he was the true discoverer of American in 1000 A.D.
In 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson, along with a unanimous Congress, proclaimed Oct. 9 as Leif Eriksson Day.
And it's a day that the American Indian Movement could
join in celebrating, since the Icelandic sagas recount that
Eriksson and his fellow Vikings were eventually forced to
retreat from these shores, on account of fierce opposition
from the skraelings.
So there's an accomplishment for European colonists, and a triumph for the indigenous inhabitants. Unlike Columbus Day, Leif Eriksson Day is a day with something for everybody.
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