Columbus Day Or Indigenous Peoples Day? How Arizona Celebrates

ARIZONA — Often considered one of the most inconsistently celebrated and controversial U.S. holidays, the second Monday in October marks Columbus Day — or Indigenous Peoples Day to some — in Arizona.

Columbus Day, a national holiday since 1937, commemorates the landing of Christopher Columbus in the Americas in 1492. Before it became a national holiday, it was unofficially celebrated in a number of cities and states as early as the 18th century.

However, throughout the holiday’s history, many states and U.S. cities have turned to alternative celebrations.

Among them is Indigenous Peoples Day, which recognizes the history and contributions of Native Americans to the United States. While Indigenous Peoples Day is celebrated in numerous places across the country, others have turned the holiday into an opportunity to celebrate Italian American heritage.

While Columbus Day is a federal holiday, meaning all federal offices will be closed Monday, not everyone gets the day off work.

Arizona celebrates Columbus Day as a state holiday. However, Gov. Doug Ducey signed a proclamation on Sept. 4, 2020 also recognizing Indigenous Peoples Day on the second Monday in October. The proclamation, however, does not replace Columbus Day as a state holiday.

The group Indigenous Peoples Day Arizona will host its seventh annual celebration from Friday through Monday. Some events will be virtual and some in-person, including one Saturday at the Heard Museum in Phoenix.

Why the controversy around Columbus Day?

The controversy is centered on the belief that Columbus was far from the first person to “discover” the Americas, did not land in the United States and played a role in the slaughter of Native Americans after he did arrive.

In 2020, amid a national reckoning on racial injustice, protesters toppled and beheaded statues of Columbus in various cities while putting pressure on city and state officials to abolish the national holiday and replace it with one that celebrates the people who first populated America.

“For Native people in the U.S., Columbus Day represents a celebration of genocide and dispossession,” Megan Hill, a citizen of the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin, told the Harvard Gazette in 2020. “The day celebrates a fictionalized and sanitized version of colonialism, whitewashing generations of brutality that many Europeans brought to these shores.”

Still, large Columbus Day parades continue to be held annually in Cleveland, Pittsburgh and Boston, among other major American cities. Many are a celebration of Italian American culture.

In a newsletter published on its website, the Italian Cultural Society of Sacramento called Columbus Day an “integral part of the American and Italian American heritage.”

“While it is not exclusive to Italian Americans, they have adopted it as their own day when they can freely and openly celebrate their American lives. Columbus Day allows Italian Americans to collectively celebrate their coming to America,” the group wrote. “Columbus Day stands as a reminder to all immigrants that their unique history and culture will be recognized and to affirm the United States as a nation of immigrants.”