Columbus Day is a U.S. federal holiday that commemorates explorer Christopher Columbus landing in the New World on October 12, 1492. It also celebrates the cultural heritage of Italian Americans, since many scholars believe Columbus was born in Genoa, Italy. The holiday has been an annual holiday in the United States since 1937 and is celebrated on the second Monday in October to give workers a long holiday weekend. Columbus Day has been celebrated by Italian immigrants in the United States since 1792, and it became a federal holiday in 1937 largely because of lobbying by the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic fraternal and charitable organization.

However, Columbus Day is also a controversial holiday. For Native people in the U.S., Columbus Day represents a celebration of genocide and dispossession. Columbus didnt discover anything, and there is significant evidence of trans-oceanic contact prior to 1492. The day celebrates a fictionalized and sanitized version of colonialism, whitewashing generations of brutality that many Europeans brought to these shores. For Indigenous people in America, the fact that many institutions and governments still recognize Indigenous Peoples’ Day under a different name (Columbus Day) is painful. It is only contributing to the continued erasure of Native peoples. Therefore, many states and localities have designated the second Monday in October as Indigenous Peoples’ Day, or some other name honoring Native Americans, without making it an official state holiday.