Hard Feelings Dominate Talk of Replacing Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples Day in LA

LOS ANGELES, CA -- A Los Angeles City Council committee held an exploratory hearing Tuesday on a controversial proposal to swap out Columbus Day for a new holiday known as Indigenous Peoples Day

The proposal has proven to be divisive, as many Italian Americans view Columbus Day as a celebration of their national heritage, while many Native Americans view the day as an offensive celebration of the genocide their ancestors suffered at the hands of Europeans after the Italian-born Columbus arrived.

While the committee made no decisions and plans to hold more public hearings on the issue in 2017, it did examine a report from the Human Relations Commission that recommends the swap and heard from members of the public on both sides of the issue.

Chrissie Castro, vice chair of the Los Angeles City/County Indian Commission, told the Rules, Elections Intergovernmental Relations and Neighborhoods Committee that "replacing the day addresses a great wound that occurred in history. In order to heal from that wound, we as a country must recognize it, address it and seek to right the wrong."

While the Human Relations Commission found a consensus among Los Angeles stakeholders for adding an Indigenous Peoples Day, its report also notes sharp disagreement in how the creation of the holiday should be done and if it should replace Columbus Day.

"I do think that they are two separate things and they've now unfairly been lumped into one, because when I come here and I stand here and say that I want Columbus Day to stay intact, I am looked at as if I don't want the indigenous people recognized. And on behalf of all the groups I represent, that is not the intent," Ann Potenza, president of the Federated Italo-Americans of Southern California, told the committee.

Los Angeles would not be the first city to replace Columbus Day, which is a federal holiday, with Indigenous Peoples Day. Nine cities in 2015 voted to do the same, and other cities like Seattle, Minneapolis, Berkeley and Santa Cruz have also done so previously, as have several states.

In 2009, then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger eliminated the Columbus Day state holiday as part of a budget-cutting measure, but Los Angeles continues to observe the holiday as one of 12 where city workers get a paid day off.

City officials have noted that observing a holiday like Columbus Day currently costs the city about $2 million in overtime and more than $9 million in "soft" costs from reduced productivity.

"Instituting an additional paid holiday would be a fiscal challenge, given all other budget priorities facing the city," the commission report states as part of its recommendation to replace Columbus Day.

Councilman Marqueece Harris-Dawson said he understood the emotions behind celebrating the spirit of exploration. But "on the other hand, there is all this history of not just here in the Americas but in Australia and Africa and other parts of Asia where the European colonization brought with it -- there's not other way to say it -- just forms of genocide."

Councilman Joe Buscaino, who is Italian American, has called the proposal to replace Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples Day "troubling" and divisive.

The original motion to create Indigenous Peoples Day was introduced by Councilman Mitch O'Farrell, who is of Native American ancestry, but it does not specifically call for it to replace Columbus Day.

The Arts, Parks and River Committee also held a hearing on the proposal in October but passed it along to the City Council without recommendation because it did not have enough members present to form a decision-making quorum.

According to a recent Marist poll commissioned by the Knights of Columbus, 55 percent of Americans support the Columbus holiday. In California, 53 percent of respondents support the holiday and 38 percent oppose it, according to the organization.

A Huffington Post/YouGov poll in 2015 found only 41 percent of Americans supported Columbus Day as a national holiday.

"The Knights of Columbus joins a majority of Californians in celebrating Columbus Day and opposing unfair efforts to erase his holiday," said Sonny Santa Ines, California deputy of the Knights of Columbus.

"As new scholarship on Columbus shows, this man has been slandered and unfairly blamed for everything that occurred after he arrived on this continent," Santa Ines said. "He was a man ahead of his time, and policy decisions should not be based on a mythology that does not square with the facts."

By CRAIG CLOUGH, City News Service; Photo: Patch Archive