I’ve been asked before why I, being of Italian descent, don’t celebrate Columbus Day. The answer to why the very idea of this day disgusts me is very simple and explained perfectly in the masterful words of Kurt Vonnegut:

“As children we were taught to memorize this year [1492] with pride and joy as the year people began living full and imaginative lives on the continent of North America.
Actually, people had been living full and imaginative lives on the continent of North America for hundreds of years before that. 1492 was simply the year sea pirates began to rob, cheat, and kill them.” (from “Breakfast of Champions”)

His very own journals show his mindset. Upon landing and discovering a thriving people, his first entries inquired whether or not they had gold. Everything that followed was in service of that goal.

Let me also debunk a common misconception: the people of this land were not called “Indians” because Columbus thought he was in India. The Indian peninsula in his time was referred to as “Hindustan” rather than “India”. Be that as it may, Columbus was lost at sea, knowing full well that he was nowhere near India when he found land- and just in time too, as his crew were at the point of mutiny; but I digress…

Here we are on that fateful day in 1492; the men reach the shore and find a people already occupying the land. What logical response could there be than to simply claim the land for Europe, be directly and indirectly responsible for the enslavement and massacre of thousands of native people, and pave the stones of what would become the lucrative slave trade.

The growth of the Unites States, itself, is directly related to the assimilation, slaughtering, and forced removal of numerous tribes from their rightful lands as it moved westward, bringing an end to hundreds of years of developing cultural identities. Today we have a growing concern- and a deserving one at that- over the use of racial slurs for these proud people as monikers for sports teams.

So the real question people should be asking is not why I don’t celebrate a day in honor of this man, but rather asking themselves why they still do.