Columbus Day, Italian Pride, and the Battle Over Memory

As someone half Italian, Columbus Day is not just a holiday-it is a badge of heritage, a marker that we Italians also built America, participated in its unfolding saga, and deserve acknowledgment rather than erasure. But lately, the left’s campaign to recast Columbus Day as “Indigenous Peoples’ Day” or to suppress its celebration altogether strikes me as part of a broader war on history, identity, and truth.

Let me be clear: I do not deny that European settlement wrought immense suffering on Native peoples, displacement, disease, and culture destruction. That history must be acknowledged, taught, and not glossed over. But the effort to entirely erase Columbus, or to demonize Italian Americans for honoring him, is itself an act of cultural aggression-a substitution of one orthodoxy for another, rather than honest reckoning.

When critics argue that “Columbus didn’t discover America” (i.e., because indigenous peoples were already here, or Vikings preceded him), they’re making valid historical points. But to turn that skepticism into a political crusade that demands the removal of statues, suppression of public celebrations, or silencing of those who wish to commemorate Columbus-that is ideological coercion. In effect, Columbus Day becomes a battleground for a moral crusade, not just a historical debate.

So, as we approach this Columbus Day, let me tell you why I stand firm in celebration out of arrogance, but out of remembrance, justice, and pride.

The Forgotten Lynching That Should Haunt Us

Let me take you back to the spring of 1891, to New Orleans, where the worst mass lynching in American history unfolded-11 Italian immigrants murdered by a mob. Wikipedia

These were not myths, not exaggerations, not mere collateral damage in some other struggle. These were people-predominantly Sicilians and Southern Italians-accused of involvement in the murder of the city police chief, David Hennessy. After a trial in which six of the defendants were acquitted, and the other three resulted in mistrial (because the jury couldn’t agree), an enraged mob stormed the parish prison and killed eleven of them-some hanged, some shot, others beaten in their cells. Wikipedia+1

No one was ever held accountable. A grand jury later claimed it could not identify participants in the mob, though many leading local figures were openly implicated. Wikipedia The press coverage at the time largely justified the atrocity, depicting Italians as criminals, as foreigners, as subhuman. Wikipedia Newspapers called for vengeance, used ethnic slurs, referred to “alien hands” of oath-bound assassins, and vilified Sicilians in blanket fashion. Wikipedia The New York Times headline the day after even declared: “Chief Hennessy Avenged… Italian Murderers Shot Down.” Wikipedia

Here’s the kicker: this savage failure of justice happened in a United States that liked to brand itself a “civilization of law and rights.” But for Italian immigrants in the 19th century, being Catholic, foreign-born, southern Italian or Sicilian was a mark against you. Anti-Italian sentiment ran deep-racialized, xenophobic, derogatory, institutional. Wikipedia+1

It was this injustice-this murder without accountability-that was one of the catalysts (ironically) for President Benjamin Harrison to declare a national Columbus Day in 1892, partly to mollify the Italian-American community and repair diplomatic tensions with Italy. Wikipedia So the holiday, in its origin, contains within it the scars of prejudice, neglect, and the blindness of American institutions to immigrant suffering.

Thus, I say to the left: if your moral crusade demands erasing Columbus, what do you do about the 1891 lynchings? Do you suppress that, too? Do you pretend it never happened, because it complicates your neat narrative of oppressed and oppressor?

Columbus Day: More Than a Statue

Columbus isn’t perfect. He sailed in a world of cruelty, of conquest, of missteps. But as a symbol, Columbus stands for exploration, aspiration, connection, and the roots of what became a multicultural America. For Italian Americans-long marginalized, once racialized, often ridiculed-Columbus Day is a recognition: “We belonged. We built. We survived.”

I reject the notion that to honor Columbus is to deny Native suffering. I assert instead that we can recognize both: the tragedy of colonization, and also the contributions and humanity of those who came here later-including many who suffered discrimination themselves.

To those pushing to abolish Columbus Day or to rebrand every civic space as Indigenous-only, I say: you are not advancing tolerance; you are enforcing orthodoxy. You expect silence, repentance, ceding of identity. You demand guilt as an entry fee. That is intellectual and cultural coercion, pure and simple.

Let the debate include Columbus-let it include both critique and celebration. Let our schools teach both the horrors and the hopes. Let our public squares feature plaques about indigenous displacement and monuments to immigrant communities. Let our holidays be plural and imperfect, rather than monolithic and censored.

Why I Will Celebrate, Proudly

1. Heritage. As half Italian, Columbus is one thread in the tapestry of my identity. To deny him is to deny part of who I am.
2. Continuity. Columbus Day is a bridge between the origin and the present. It reminds us that Italians came, struggled, were derided, and yet persisted.
3. Memory of injustice. The 1891 lynchings and countless other persecutions of Italians show how far we’ve come, and how vigilance must never cease. If we erase Columbus, we erase context. If we silence our own story, we become invisible in the very debates that demand our erasure.
4. Balance. We can and must criticize Columbus’s misdeeds (and the colonial project he embodies) while not discarding the cultural and historical significance his voyage had for millions who followed.
5. Resistance to ideological purge. If the left succeeds in removing Columbus from public life entirely, what comes next? Which icons, which figures, which communities will be next? This is not about blind hero worship; it is about protecting the pluralism of memory.

In sum: Columbus Day is not a triumphal celebration of colonization, but a recognition of complexity: the bravery, the hubris, the tragedies, the legacies. It is our holiday as Italian Americans, but it also belongs to America. If the left wants to reframe, fine. Let’s reframe together-not by erasing, but by adding, subtracting, examining, and debating. Let indigenous voices be heard, let immigrant voices be heard, let history be messy.

But to outright ban or shame Columbus Day-to demand that those of us half Italian or fully Italian renounce a piece of ourselves not justice. It is cultural vengeance cloaked in moral rhetoric.

So this Columbus Day, I will celebrate. I will raise a toast to my ancestors, to this nation of pain and promise, and to a future where memory is not a monopoly, and identity not erased.

Salute.

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David Lee, is a contributor for Direct Line News. He can be reached at David.lee@mcgopclub.com      

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