The irony is that there was no "Italy" as such at the time, and the various rich city-states wanted nothing to do with Columbus and his wacky plan to sail west to Asia.

Italian "culture" was all about making money from banking and sitting at the end of the Silk Road. Exploring the Americas was all about the Spanish, Dutch, French, and English.

Kinda lame to start with as a national icon.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You are here in DC enjoying the benefits of living in America.

If America was never colonized, you would be living in your ancestral home countries speaking a different language.

Not me. My ancestral home was genocided.

+1

It's amazing that there's now an official "Immigration is Terrible Day". Whatever right-winger slipped this into the left-wing zeitgeist deserves a raise.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Polish Americans were discriminated against. Where is their holiday? Every one has a grievance about something that happened three generations ago. If you care about discrimination and racism, spend your time and energy fighting against today’s discrimination.

You mean Pulaski Day?

Casimir Pulaki Day is not a Federal Holiday, I know it is celebrated in Illinois and a few other cities outside of Illinois. I would guess most Americans have no clue who he is and have never celebrated his “day.”

Italian American’s don’t need a specific federal holiday, I am trying to think of another Federal Holiday that is devoted to a specific nationality, there are none. Irish American’s struggled when they came to the US but there is not a Federal Holiday celebrating them. Honestly, most every ethnicity that came to the US has can show that they were discriminated against, it wasn’t just the Italians. If anything, the Chinese and Japanese immigrants have faced the most discrimination in the US historically and there is not a day for either group. We imprisoned Japanese Americans on the West Coast during WWII.

Anonymous wrote:What would “celebrating” it look like? Go for a drive, get lost, re-name people and places, kill everyone and steal the land?

It’s hard to fit that into a single day.

It would be especially hard to fit the sense of "you might not make it back home" into the celebration.

Of all the things that happened, the fact that there was a bare minimum of courage (stupidity? greed?) required is the one I'm willing to somewhat admire.

Anonymous wrote:What would “celebrating” it look like? Go for a drive, get lost, re-name people and places, kill everyone and steal the land?

It’s hard to fit that into a single day.

Good one.

Anonymous wrote:What would “celebrating” it look like? Go for a drive, get lost, re-name people and places, kill everyone and steal the land?

It’s hard to fit that into a single day.

Bwahahahahaha!

Does no one on this thread have a sense of humor?? This is hilarious!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Columbus isn’t exactly someone to celebrate. He didn’t “find” anything that didn’t already exist.

My school will be talking about Indigenous Peoples day instead

The irony here is that Columbus Day was first celebrated to combat anti-Catholic sentiment and oppression in the United States.

Columbus was no saint, and no he was not the first to set foot in the "New World". And, yes, we should honor those native to this land too, but let's not ignore that the intent of Columbus day was to include a previously marginalized population (i.e. Catholics) and combat the prejudice and discrimination that they faced. You don't need to celebrate the man, but his accomplishments and what they represent set off the chain of events that led to the society we live in today, for better or worse.

Weird revisionist history