Though 2008’s Anti-Columbus Day event spurred controversy and a formal complaint with the University’s Bias Response Team, the Native American Student Union decided to hold the 2009 edition with only minor changes in its format.
The event, also known as “Indigenous Solidarity Day,” still included signs with eye-catching slogans such as “Christopher Columbus: America’s 1st Terrorist” and “For America to Live, Columbus Must Die,” as well as traditional singing and drumming and speeches. It also included controversial mock airline tickets from the fictitious “Native American Travel Agency” marked “Departure: NOW from The America’s,” to Eastern Hemisphere destinations.
In 2008, one student filed a complaint against NASU after she received a ticket that listed Africa as its destination from a student unconnected to the event. Other multicultural groups objected, but NASU co-director Carina Miller was unapologetic about the tickets, saying it had been “out of context.”
“I hope people realize we’ve struggled, too,” Miller said.
However, NASU changed the format for the tickets. In 2008, the group printed tickets to countries in Asia, as well as Africa. This year, the group only printed tickets to European countries including Italy, Finland and Austria, as well as ones with blank spaces for other destinations.
And they only gave them out to people who requested them, Miller said.
“We kind of came to an agreement,” Miller said of NASU and the other groups that had objected.
Miller said people had responded positively to the event in general, although she said one person hit the signs at the event and another told her, “This doesn’t matter. There’s none of you left anyway.”
The event took place on the anniversary of Columbus’ ships’ arrival in the Bahamas in 1492, making the Italian explorer among the first Europeans to set foot in the Americas.The anniversary is traditionally commemorated with the holiday Columbus Day.
Many American Indians, who lived on the continent for thousands of years before Columbus’ voyage, see the holiday as a celebration of the subsequent diminishing of their numbers through war, genocide and disease brought on by the European settlers who followed Columbus across the Atlantic.
“This is a holiday that we need to take over,” NASU co-director Roshelle Nieto said in a speech at the event.
Latin American history professor Robert Haskett said attitudes toward Columbus are already changing among his students.
“Some of the students come in with a more nuanced understanding of who Columbus was from lower grades,” he said. “Some still come in with a view of him as a hero.”
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