The Native American Student Union on Monday celebrated Anti-Columbus Day, a protest against a federal holiday some believe is a celebration of genocide.
NASU’s event took place in the EMU Amphitheater. Its organizers say Columbus Day, a national holiday observed every second Monday of October since 1971, is a commemoration of their people’s extermination and erasure from historical narratives.
To protest, they posted a booth on the walkway at the EMU from which they handed out commemorative red armbands and mock tickets from the continent for non-American Indians. The tickets showed a departure date of “NOW” and listed as a price “Free, please just leave.”
“We’ve gotten a lot of laughs about those,” said senior Patrick DeCelles, a NASU member working at the booth, who claimed the tickets were meant as a pointed joke.
DeCelles and other students also wore shirts comparing Christopher Columbus to Adolf Hitler, which included a picture of the Italian explorer with the German dictator’s infamous cookie-duster mustache drawn on his upper lip.
Students also performed traditional dance, circling hand-in-hand around the amphitheater to the accompaniment of traditional drums and singing.
Later in the night, they held other events at the Many Nations Longhouse on 15th Street.
“It’s pretty creative,” said ethnic studies major Ryan McCurine, who saw the event while making his way past the amphitheater. “The effect Columbus had is not really understood yet, so I think this has an effect.”
Columbus Day honors Columbus, who sailed across the Atlantic from Spain in 1492 in an effort to discover a westward route to the East Indies. Instead, Columbus and his crew reached the Bahamas and subsequently explored many of the islands of the Caribbean, a region theretofore widely unknown in Europe.
In history books, Columbus’ feat has traditionally been described as the “discovery” of the Americas, but that interpretation is rejected by some who point out that native people lived on the continents for thousands of years before the birth of Columbus.
“He represents genocides against our people,” said J.R. Redwater, a comedian brought in as the keynote speaker for the longhouse event. The celebration of Columbus, he argued, is a celebration of the removal of American Indian history from the narrative of American History.
“Our story was stolen,” said Tom Ball, who helped NASU organize the event. Ball pointed to the dancing students and added, “They’re reclaiming our story.”
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