Canadian Thanksgiving

Columbus Day

Those of you south of our border may not realize that we do have a Thanksgiving holiday up here. One of the many great things about it is that it frees us from having to mention “Columbus Day”, a term that now should not be used unless you are at an Italian event or attending a meeting of the Explorer’s Club. In many places Columbus is now regarded as one of an invasive species who should be exterminated.

Naturally, I choose to mention “Columbus Day” because of my contrarian nature, but also because I noticed an article about the subject and Brown University where it is now known as “Indigenous People’s Day." Apparently the students were happy to have the holiday, but uncomfortable about what they were celebrating. They have been calling it simply “Fall Weekend” since 2009. Variations of “Indigenous People’s Day” (and other phrases) are used throughout the country and the only argument left is about the apostrophe and where it should go in the word “People’s, or if it should be left out completely.

I had planned to go on, but won’t since I have been scooped again by Wikipedia which has a thorough entry about Columbus Day that even has sections discussing “Non-Observance” and “Opposition to Columbus Celebrations”. While you are visiting Wikipedia see also the entries for “Canadian Thanksgiving” and the one called “Christmas Controversy” which is useful in terms of thinking about the Columbus one. The article about Brown is here: “At Brown University, Columbus Day is Now Indigenous People’s Day,” Daniel Victor, NYT, Feb. 3, 2016.

Before I abandoned this project I did learn three things: 1) the dispute over “Columbus Day” is not new; 2) it was not always over “Indigenous People”, but sometimes about religion; and 3) I finally learned what the new meaning of “Appropriation” is all about (and this is not in Wikipedia). Here is the title of an article from 1917 along with the first paragraph which illustrates those three things: “Columbus Day Acts Protested,” Christian Science Monitor, Oct. 13, 1917:

“Appropriation of Boston’s annual observance of Columbus Day for sectarian rather than historical purposes was criticized today by citizens who objected to the dedication of Columbus Park, a public recreation ground on the South Boston Strandway, with a Roman Catholic mass celebrated by William Cardinal O’Connell.”

The protesters felt that, what were then regarded as the ‘achievements’ of Columbus should be celebrated because he was an Italian, not because he was a Catholic.

I did not check to see if the park has been re-named.