Columbus day or Indigenous people day By: Luis Ceja

Today Monday October the 12th marks Columbus Day this year. Columbus day is a federal holiday
commemorating the italian explorer Christopher Columbus. He is accredited for discovering the new world america. But the holiday is quite loose since only 23 states and washington d.c. recognize the holiday. Now the holiday has shifted towards a celebration of italian-americans as well as columbus himself. Recently though in there has been a shift in attitude towards columbus day with many cities recognizing it instead as indigenous people day in honor of native americans. Especially in this time were we are debating things like the use of the name redskins for a football team's name. Personally I'm fan of this movement for a change. Lets look at the facts regarding Christopher Columbus. First off he was not the first european to discover the new world. The vikings had built a settlement at newfoundland at about 1000 A.D. nearly 500 years before columbus. Second of all discovering the new world was a complete accident. He meant to just go around the world to get to china and trade. On top of that he was dumb enough to mistaken one small island as the massive subcontinent india and called the native americans indians because of it. which also means he had no knowledge on actual indians or there culture which is important as an explorer or merchant. In fact if he had some knowledge he would easily be able to tell the difference between native americans an actual indians. Which means to this day people call native americans indians despite it being totally wrong. Finally he paved the way for the systematic deaths of 90% of the indigenous population through disease and warfare. Millions of lives lost. Yet he gets a national holiday. Finally hes not american and he didnt contribute to american society except embodies some of the worst parts of america in the early days.