I'm an Italian American; I won't celebrate Columbus Day

As an Italian-American, the relationship I have with Columbus Day is a strange one, but ultimately a place of pain for me.

I am of a generation of Italian Americans that is far removed from the racial tension associated with an Italian identity (which at a place and time there was definitely that reality for Italians). My father and his relatives experienced being Italian in a far different way than I did. Although my father spent time surrounded by many, many other cultures and people of different ethnic and racial backgrounds, from his descriptions it was far from the unified racial utopia that we all long for. Simply having interaction with another group of people for him didn't erase the felt presence of racial tension that had stood between the different communities of San Francisco. With that in the air, I think there came a bolstering or closing of ranks when it came to standing behind that Italian identity. Sometimes I've seen it lead to stubbornness and rock-headedness that made dying on every Italian-hill somewhat constant.

I love my Italian heritage. I love the culture of my family. I love the values and the positives that come with it. As much as I feel I can now piece out and identify the parts of that culture that are hurtful, damaging, or just misguided I hold it all with a peaceful sense of non-mutual exclusivity. Yet at the same time, I still hold that as my identity: on my dad's side of the family, I am an Italian American who experienced an upbringing consistently exposed to Italian American Culture.

However, having that identity shouldn't make me blindly follow it down a dark hole of history. Italy has its fair share of villains in history and I would be misguided, for instance, to stand behind or prop up someone like Mussolini simply because of their racial origin. So it baffles me that Italian Americans, and even specifically Americans not of Italian heritage, would be willing to die on the Columbus hill. There is a heat generated around protecting a day we call Columbus Day to remember Columbus for 'finding America'.

There is so much I find wrong with that assumption and why it compels us to celebrate a day in honor of him, but I digress. I understand the history of why Columbus day started, and I understand the groups and communities that propelled that day forward, but I don't find it a compelling reason. But now in retrospect, given what we know about Columbus as a person, his activities, his legacy, and the erroneous idea that he 'found' North America, why would we want to stake our Italian American identity or our American identity on that concept or paradigm?

As someone who actually has as a stake in this identity, I want to share a thought with you: I don't want to celebrate or will celebrate Columbus day.

To celebrate Christopher Columbus feels like setting the bar really, really low for who should represent Italians and Italian Americans, let alone the values our country holds. I'd personally get the same feelings celebrating a confederate general that I would Christopher Columbus. History has not stood on their side. And what's more, their very role as an explorer (or in the aforementioned example, a general) was spent expending energy for an endeavor that was ultimately evil, wrong, and against the inherent sacredness and God-given imago Dei that I personally believe every human being holds (including Columbus or a confederate general).

We can do much better to celebrate someone else. There has to be, in all the Italians since Italy stood, a better paragon or example of virtue we want to look forward to. No one person is perfect. Ever. But to throw our identity underneath someone who was a slaver and colonizer is suggesting we are not worthy of something more virtuous or noble.

So yes, I will celebrate Indigenous people's day. Gladly. I won't celebrate Christopher Columbus.

If we can find a day in the year to celebrate an Italian more worthy of attention then I'm there. I'll be there in Green, White, and Red. I'll raise a glad of red wine with you and share my family’s Crab Cioppino recipe to the table. I'll toast the beauty, life, and vibrancy of Italian culture.

I won't toast to slavery, colonizing, and racism, however. That's a banquet table I refuse to choose into.

It's not hard to imagine that these words are coming to the choir for some of you, however, there are still some of us who haven't quite made up our minds about this, or are simply ambivalent as to what day holds who’s name. But I challenge you to think about how we remember history and what face we give it.

What we put in our calendar books expresses what we care about