{"id":16585,"date":"2015-10-12T17:40:23","date_gmt":"2015-10-13T00:40:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=16585"},"modified":"2015-10-13T04:16:50","modified_gmt":"2015-10-13T11:16:50","slug":"americans-also-have-a-holiday-today-but-should-we","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2015\/10\/12\/americans-also-have-a-holiday-today-but-should-we\/","title":{"rendered":"Americans Also Have a Holiday Today \u2013 But Should We?"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you forgot and tried to go to most banks today, you were quickly reminded it’s Columbus Day<\/em><\/strong>.  No doubt it brought back grade school memories of singing:<\/p>\n

\"Columbus-Ships-Boats_1492\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

In fourteen hundred ninety-two,<\/em><\/p>\n

Columbus sailed the ocean blue.<\/em><\/p>\n

He had three ships and left from Spain.<\/em><\/p>\n

He sailed through sunshine, wind and rain.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

On those lyrics all Americans can agree.  After that, the story in song – and in deed – quickly diverges from facts to some pretty amazing myth.<\/p>\n

Congress set aside the second Monday of October as a federal holiday honoring Columbus since 1934.  But Native Americans are slowly winning more recognition to transform it to Indigenous Peoples Day<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Back in 1990, South Dakota voted to rename Columbus Day to Native American Day<\/em><\/strong>.  And a number of cities, let by Berkeley, California since 1992, have succeeded in renaming it Indigenous Peoples Day<\/em>.  That list now also includes Seattle, Minneapolis, Albuquerque, Lawrence KS, Portland OR, Olympia WA, St. Paul and a few others.<\/p>\n

\"Map_Columbus-Day_Indigenous-Peoples-Day\"<\/a><\/p>\n

CLICK MAP TO ENLARGE<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Clearly this is a controversial issue with those wanting to honor Columbus and those wanting to recognize the history of Native Americans having valid points.  I would hope that there’s enough Solomon-like wisdom among us that we can reach a fair compromise recognizing both cultures’ contributions.<\/p>\n

So what are your thoughts?<\/p>\n

This one has an even-handed look at the historical background of Columbus Day:<\/p>\n

http:\/\/talkingpointsmemo.com\/cafe\/how-to-reinvent-columbus-day<\/a><\/p>\n

And for more background reading and resources used for this short post:<\/p>\n

http:\/\/indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com\/2015\/10\/08\/making-promise-monday-will-be-indigenous-peoples-day-portland-162003<\/a><\/p>\n

http:\/\/thinkprogress.org\/justice\/2015\/10\/12\/3711539\/indigenous-peoples-day\/<\/a> [MAP GRAPHIC – for a larger view]<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

http:\/\/learning.blogs.nytimes.com\/2015\/10\/12\/were-off-for-columbus-day-2\/<\/a><\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/aponline\/2015\/10\/11\/us\/ap-us-columbus-day-name.html<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you forgot and tried to go to most banks today, you were quickly reminded it’s Columbus Day.  No doubt it brought back grade school memories of singing: In fourteen hundred ninety-two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue. He had three ships and left from Spain. He sailed through sunshine, wind and rain. On those lyrics […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16585"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16585\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}