Waltham Residents Urge City To Remove Columbus Memorial

WALTHAM, MA — A group of Waltham residents are asking the city consider taking down a monument to Christopher Columbus on the Waltham Common before Columbus Day.

"It needs to be removed, like yesterday," reads a petition that has garnered more than 200 signatures.

It's unclear who is leading the group behind the petition, which is simply signed "Your neighbors in Ward 1."

A representative for the group told Patch in an email they had reached out to Mayor Jeannette McCarthy and all of the city councilors on the proposal. Ward 1 Councilor Anthony LaFacui did not respond to requests for comment.

Christopher Columbus, hailed for centuries as a conquering European hero who discovered America in 1492, where civilization had already been for thousands of years, has come under fire in recent years as details of his legacy become more widely known. Historians say the explorer was a violent man who ushered in the genocide of millions of indigenous people.

Columbus' sailing expeditions are now seen by many as opening the door to the European conquest of Native American peoples and the establishment of the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

A handful of other cities and towns — including Brookline, Cambridge, Somerville and Amherst — have pulled the plug on Columbus Day altogether. Other communities from Melrose to Newton are considering a change.

But for many Italian Americans the explorer and Columbus Day have come to embody Italian American pride, even if steeped in myth. In the late 1930s Columbus Day became a national holiday and by the early 1990s two local residents help pay for and erect a monument to him on the Waltham Common.

"A quincentennial commemorative to Christopher Columbus. The European discoverer of the New World in 1492 commissioned the admiral of the ocean sea an Italian renaissance sailor whose great imagination, courage and navigational skills led to early discovery, exploration and ultimate establishment of the Americas," reads the monument, which faces Moody Street.

Italian Americans who came to the United States from the late 1800s through the early 1900s were subject to vicious bigotry, discriminated against and treated violently, even lynched, for decades. Putting an Italian face on the hero of America's origin story gave them a real sense of cultural pride and a stake on being an American. Congress curtailed Italian immigration on racial grounds in the 1920s, even though Italians were legally white. In 1965, Italian-Americans campaigned to overturn racist restrictions using the Columbus icon to their advantage.

For many, especially those who are old enough to remember discrimination, that's what's at heart here.

"It's a hard sell to the Italian Community," acknowledged Waltham resident Corrie Popp a cofounder of the Italian Americans for Indigenous People's Day, which supported a push to remove a monument to Columbus in Boston's North End last year.

Popp, who is in her 40s and is a teacher in Newton, said she knows that this holiday has been important to normalizing the Italian community, but it's time for an adjustment.

"Can we decouple our awesomeness as Italian Americans with our association with Columbus?" said Popp.

She said the move to remove the monument from the common is less about canceling Columbus, or the Italian Americans who are an important part of the country, but it's about being respectful to all people.

"Let's just not honor these people in public places where they make other people feel oppressed. It's not like you have to erase them," she said.

As statutes have been coming down there's been an uptick in Italian Americans joining forces nationally to work together to convince people that this isn't the worst thing.

The petition says Columbus isn't fit to represent any Americans, let alone Italians, pointing out that although most historians agree Columbus was born in Genoa, what is modern day Italy, there was no country of Italy during his lifetime.

"He was a representative of Spain who became a tyrant, enslaving Indigenous peoples and mistreating other Europeans," reads the petition. "He never came to the United States, Waltham, or the Common."

In fact, although he sailed to the Americas several times in his lifetime, Columbus only made it to the Caribbean, where historians said he ordered the slavery and deaths of countless indigenous people.

United American Indians of New England, an area organization, supports bringing down public memorials to Columbus, for that reason.

"This issue should not be presented as 'Indigenous versus Italians,' Mahtowin Munro of United American Indians of New England told Patch. " People of Italian ancestry have a lot of amazing things to be proud of in their history, culture, and people. Columbus, however, should not be a point of pride for anyone."

Munro likened the issue to that of white people in the South clinging to the confederate flag and memorials despite the longstanding demands of Black people to remove those symbols of hate.

"There are some people here who refuse to listen to Indigenous voices and the truth about Columbus," Munro said. "There should be a bedrock social understanding in Waltham —and everywhere else — that it is wrong and harmful to celebrate people who perpetrated genocide."

"Having public monuments dedicated to a monster like Columbus sends the message to children that it is fine to ignore Indigenous history and to venerate a butcher. It also perpetuates myths, such as that Indigenous peoples were "discovered" by Columbus (we were never lost), and that Columbus brought civilization to us (we had thousands of civilizations)," Monro said.

The petitioners said they have sent letters to James Simeone, Salvatore Pinzone, and Angelo Urso —three of the people involved with the original installation of the monument — respectfully asking them to consider its removal.

The petitioners argue that ever time it is vandalized, and it has been the target of vandalism several times recently, it requires resources from the police and city workers to clean it. Most recently, it was tagged with "BLM."

"We remember how Mayor McCarthy assured youth organizers at the march back in June that Black lives do matter here in Waltham," reads the petition. "Maybe removing this offensive monument would be an actionable way to demonstrate the truth of that statement. "

The group is suggesting that Italian Americans can be properly honored for their long standing contributions to our country with different memorials, rather than Columbus.

"Many citizens of Waltham are tired of seeing this monument, tired of being hurt by it, tired of the ways that it misrepresents our history," reads the petition. "We are dedicated to working with you to make Waltham the best possible community. Let’s improve our city by removing this eyesore on the Common by October 12."

Read more:

• Columbus As Supremacist? Some With Italian Roots ...
• QUICK FACTS: What's the Ethnic Makeup Of Waltham?
• Brookline To Change Columbus Day To 'Indigenous People's ...
• Newton Considers Renaming Columbus Day To Indigenous People's Day

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