From Viva Cuernavaca:
"In Mexico, since 1928, we have officially noted Día de la Raza (Day of the Race, or Day of the People). However, rather than a celebration of discovery, the day originally referred to the Hispanic influence in the Americas. Día de la Raza has come to be seen by indigenous activists throughout Latin America as a counter to Columbus Day; a celebration of the native races and cultures and of the resistance against the arrival of Europeans in the Americas. In the U.S.A. Día de la Raza has served as a time of mobilization for pan-ethnic Latino activists, particularly in the 1960s. Since then, La Raza has served as a periodic rallying cry for Hispanic activists. The first Hispanic March on Washington (U.S.A.) occurred on Columbus Day in 1996. The name has remained in the largest Hispanic social justice organization, by the National Council of La Raza.It's hard for most US Americans to accept this perspective, because it means their prosperity is based on what European settlers took from the original inhabitants here. It's easier to try to block this out than to consider the implications - like giving something, anything, back.
During the four hundredth anniversary in 1892, in the U.S.A., teachers, preachers, poets and politicians erroneously used Columbus Day rituals to teach ideals of patriotism. These patriotic rituals were framed around themes such as citizenship boundaries, the importance of loyalty to the nation, and celebrating social progress. Columbus was from Italy, but gave his allegiance to Spain. As we shall see in the following paragraphs, Columbus did little to bring about social progress to the New World.
However, most do not celebrate the day as a joyous one, but as a day of resistance, of sorrow and in respectful memory of the millions who were killed by the Europeans or died from the infectious diseases brought upon the Americas. Today, most know that Columbus did not discover the Americas, he invaded them. Should we continue to pay homage to Christopher Columbus in light of the many atrocities that he instigated on those who had greeted him with kindness and gifts, a man who was responsible for the mass decimation of millions of individuals, all in the name of greed by a foreign government?"
Here's a blog post about Dia de la Raza in Santiago, Chile in 2015. Pictures and some short video as well as words.
All for it. Reset Columbus Day. It's well past its sell-by date. We should not only re-name, but re-purpose it. This alone is difficult amidst rising tides of nationalism among ‘European Peoples’ movements (‘USA First’ oddly enough where you live).
ReplyDeleteAs to your last paragraph asking how to set right violence(s) of European colonialism, that seeks another goal – say, how to restore justice in cases of war. Well, first the parties must agree one side was wronged. It assumes dominant culture interpretation in what is crime. It’s all further confused by examining power-structure benefits. For instance, are white women culpable, too, for war against first peoples of the Americas? Or are they only assigned some portion of guilt? Are immigrants who arrive in 20th century America guilty of the same crime as plantation-granted 18th century, slave-owners? Are all Black men and women who were enslaved given a pass for land they later acquired through US land-patents, vehicles for homestead acts in which Indian land rights were ignored?
How do we dispense justice for the past when some ‘perps’ are guilty of the crime as witness, while some, for acting? Would and how do we put the entire civilian population of the Soviet Union on trial for the gulags? All Germans born before WWII, for crimes against humanity? Is the citizen the State and what is their share in justice so contrived, situated as defendant or accuser?
There is plenty to discuss here, Steve. And it’s not black and white as too many in the United States discuss it; the First Peoples of the USA have been, without question in my mind, the most aggrieved of all those who were harmed by its manifest destiny. Central and South America are not at all, guilty of anything less.
But how does America make right the sanctioned wrong inflicted upon me, born in a 1954 Minnesota, for hatred heaped upon me growing up a gay boy? for being told I was deviant and criminal; for a first boyfriend who tried to kill his self-hatred by driving us off a cliff? These are wrongs suffered in living memory.
How are we ever made whole for the past; how am I made whole, for wrongs suffered in my past? for in your discussion, I become European only. I feel; I could say I know, this discussion must be about our future relationships. In this work, I know more than anything, I don't know how to bring healing to our past.
All that said, sign me up. I'm willing to try.
Addendum: Looking at my comments above, I should have noted that Latinx European colonisation in the Americas is both different and similar to what happened in the United States.
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