On March 2nd, Wellesley voters will be asked to vote on Question #1, which proposes to abolish Columbus Day and replace it with Indigenous Peoples Day. Here are good fact-based reasons why we think you should vote NO on Question #1.

Indigenous Peoples have been rightly calling for a day of recognition and atonement. President Barack Obama answered their call in 2009 by permanently establishing national Native American Heritage Day, a civil holiday, on the Friday after Thanksgiving. With this holiday in place, we have the opportunity to visit the mistakes of the past as a community by acknowledging those mistakes and building a more comprehensive history that incorporates more voices moving forward.

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What we have discovered during our campaign is that you don’t have to be Italian to support Columbus Day.

Many immigrants and descendants of recent immigrants identify with Columbus Day because Columbus opened the Americas to immigration and the opportunity for a new life. Early in our campaign, we received a donation from a recent immigrant to the US, a landscaper mowing lawns on Linden Street, who saw one of our signs and wrote, “Thank you for doing this!” This is how Columbus should be remembered today—as the father of American immigration.

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I am concerned about articles that denounce Columbus and wish to replace Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples Day. I have no problem with the latter but it should be a different day, preferably a day chosen by them. Most people know little about Columbus and are blaming him for things he did not do.
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On March 2, 2021, the people of Wellesley will be asked to approve a motion that the Select Board cease to recognize Columbus Day and re-designate the day as Indigenous People’s Day. This proposal is both misleading and historically in error as well as unnecessary.

The Columbus Day holiday is tied to Italian-Americans and Italian immigration. By the time Columbus Day became an official holiday in 1968 it was quite clear that Columbus had not “discovered” the Americas and that the Norse were here 500 years before Columbus. Moreover, in his four voyages to the Americas, Columbus never set foot on the land that was to become the US.

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As parents, one of our fundamental responsibilities is to help our children develop a sense of morality and to model the ideas and behaviors we value. All parents want to instill morals and principles that will last lifetimes and shape how our children interact with the world. While we do our best to take every opportunity to model good behaviors and values for our boys, we must
acknowledge that society will exert a powerful influence that we cannot entirely control. This is why a holiday like Columbus Day bothers us as parents.

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For many the second Monday of October has never been about a European explorer but about the land upon which we live. Every October, the leaves turn gold, and New England becomes indescribably beautiful. We called it Columbus Day because we thought we owed it to him for discovering this land.

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