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Statues of Christopher Columbus across the country have been toppled, beheaded, spray painted and, in New London, removed and hidden in a warehouse.
On Columbus Day this year, the legacy of the Italian explorer continues to spark debate in the United States over whether Columbus should be honored as a symbol of hope for Italian-Americans who have had struggling to assimilate to the United States or hated as the man whose arrival in the Americas caused countless deaths of indigenous peoples.
So while Columbus Day remains a federal holiday, various organizations and school districts across the state have chosen to celebrate Indigenous Peoples Day or some other alternative instead.
New London City Council went beyond the final removal of the Christopher Columbus statue last year and passed a resolution swapping Christopher Columbus Day with Italian Heritage Day. October is now designated as Italian-American Heritage Month and November as Native American Heritage Month.
City council member Curtis Goodwin said the original idea was to swap Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples Day. However, after the Christopher Columbus statue was removed, Goodwin said he had had many conversations with local Italian Americans and learned more about their struggles, perseverance and dedication to the community.
“It occurred to me that the best way forward was to show that we can honor everyone,” Goodwin said.
This distracted attention from Columbus, a man Goodwin said “shouldn’t be written in the history books as a hero.” It provides for an ongoing conversation and struggle of Native Americans and Indigenous peoples for relevance in the history books.
And while some schools have chosen to remove Columbus Day vacations from schools, most have not. The Stonington Board of Education, in a 3-2 vote in August, changed Indigenous Peoples Day to Columbus Day. The move was criticized by some who said there had not been enough public discussion about the move. There were also false claims that the district was teaching critical race theory.
New London Mayor Michael Passero proactively removed the 90-year-old Columbus statue last year amid protests and vandalism over the murder of black man George Floyd killed by police while handcuffed in Minneapolis. The statue was unveiled in 1928, a gift to the city from the Italian-American community.
Despite being proud of his Italian heritage, Passero said Columbus was just plain offensive to too many people.
“I didn’t grow up understanding historic Columbus as we understand it now. He was a historical figure associated with Italian heritage. Turns out they picked the wrong guy, ”Passero said.
There has been no city-sponsored Columbus Day celebration in recent memory, but Passero said he welcomed any effort to recognize Italian-Americans at the new holiday.
“We just understand that the real intention is to celebrate the Italian heritage, especially in New London where we have had a lot of immigrants who have contributed to the development of the city. We don’t want to muddy the waters with a historical figure who turns out to be an outcast, ”he said.
Tribal response
New London’s push for the Columbus statue to be removed has coincided with a backlash against what some see as symbols of white supremacy and racism.
The Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation issued a direct statement on the issue which said in part, “Times are changing and more and more people no longer support monuments or festivals celebrating individuals like Columbus or those who perpetuate systemic racism.” Such a change is long overdue.
“Christopher Columbus is a complicated historical figure in American history. While Columbus is a symbol of Italian and Catholic heritage and is credited with connecting the eastern and western hemispheres, it also represents our country’s dark and painful past. For Native Americans and other people of color, it symbolizes genocide, slavery, displacement – all of which are rooted in racism – and much more. Celebrating his legacy with statues is a stark reminder of the heinous acts committed against indigenous peoples by him and other colonizers around the world.
Melissa Tantaquidgeon-Zobel, the medicine woman and tribal historian of the Mohegan tribe, issued a statement to welcome the celebration of Indigenous Peoples Day.
“The Mohegan Tribe is happy to honor the heritage of all Indigenous Peoples on this day, including our neighbors in the Americas, as well as Indigenous Peoples from all continents of the world. Certainly, it is a day to celebrate the individuals, tribal nations and traditions they fought to maintain, in the face of centuries of attacks on their languages and cultures by settler colonialism.
Save the statues
Dan Onofrio, the immediate past president of the Connecticut section of the National Sons and Daughters of Italy in America, said he and others rushed in last year to help recover statues. He said he made numerous unsuccessful attempts to reach Passero in the days leading up to the removal of the statue of Christopher Columbus.
A first-generation Italian-American, Onofrio said his organization hoped to work with municipalities to find homes for the attacked statues. As he sympathizes with those demonstrating for social justice, he said Columbus represented new hope for Italian immigrants and was a source of pride for a group that was treated like second-class citizens upon arriving in the United States. United States.
“The country was built on diverse cultures. Can’t we find a way to unify. It’s hard to see where we’re going if we don’t recognize our past, ”said Onofrio. “I want to find a solution.
He said he was encouraged to find that New London still recognizes the Italian-American experience, but said he hoped the city could consider what he called “a unifying solution to preserve what this ( the statue of Columbus) means to many people and their families. “
He points to the town of Norwalk as a good example of compromise. Last year, the city removed a statue of Christopher Columbus from a public space and, in coordination with the Columbus Memorial Fund, the group that maintained the statue found a new home for it at a private Italian-American club.
New London was not the only local municipality to approach Columbus.
Last year, the Italian Heritage and Culture Committee in Norwich removed the wording and a bust of Columbus engraved on the side of the Italian heritage monument at Chelsea Parade.
Westerly celebrates Columbus
Unlike the removal of the statues of Christopher Columbus, the owners of the Statue of Christopher Columbus in Wilcox Park in Westerly have chosen to protect what the Memorial and Library Association of Westerly Board of Trustees calls “an exemplary example of local craftsmanship and a specimen of Westerly Granite. “
The council, in response to acts of vandalism, chose to install new cameras linked to the West Police Department, better lighting and an enclosed enclosure for the area surrounding the statue. Work on the metal enclosure is underway and is expected to have a door open during library hours.
Westerly and neighboring Stonington also host the annual Westerly-Pawcatuck Columbus Day Parade, which began in 1947 and is one of Rhode Island’s largest parades. It did not take place in 2020 or 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but is expected to return on October 9, 2022.
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