The president of the United States, Donald Trump, announced this Sunday his intention to “recover” Columbus Day, which is celebrated uninterruptedly in the United States at the federal level on the second Monday of October since 1971, after “the attempts of the Democrats to destroy Christopher Columbus.”
“I’m going to recover Columbus Day among its ashes. Democrats They have done everything possible to destroy Christopher Columbushis reputation, and all the Italians who want it so much, “he said in reference to the tradition of the Italo-American community to celebrate the date.
In addition, he has referred to the actions of indigenous activists and denunciation of colonialism that “have demolished their statues to impose their ‘progre’ position or, worse, nothing at all.” Along these lines, the president has launched the following message: “Now you will be happy because Cristóbal will have an important return. Cristóbal Colón’s day with the same standards, dates and locations that he has had for many decades. “
A tradition since 1971
The ‘Columbus Day’ has been celebrated at the federal level since 1971 after decades of claims, mainly from the Italo-American community, which remembered in particular the death by lynching of Once Italians in New Orleans in 1891, during a wave of reason against immigrants.
Trump’s predecessor, Joe Bidendid not repeal Columbus’s day, although it promoted the Indigenous Peoples Day Celebrations on that same day. On previous occasions, Trump has declared himself a defender of the “American way of life that began with Christopher Columbus.”
In recent years, and throughout the United States, the legacy of the country’s founders and other historical figures such as Columbus has been questioned in the framework of the protests of the ‘Black Lives matter’ to criticize systematic racism, massively revived after the death of African -American George Floyd at the hands of the police in Mineapolis.
Thus, American cities have withdrawn statues and monuments that honored figures from the Confederate states and also statues of Christopher Columbus or the Spanish conqueror Juan de Oñate.
