Columbus Day

Columbus Day is a funny holiday in current American culture. Once upon a time it was a holiday where Americans celebrated the discovery of the North American continent and the arrival of the Europeans, in a way different from the meaning conferred upon Thanksgiving. Never quite a full-fledged holiday like Memorial Day, Labor Day, Independence Day or the winter holidays of Christmas, Thanksgiving, New Year’s and President’s Day, it was closely associated with the ethno-centrism that has fallen from grace as a worldview. As a result, today’s Columbus Day has an almost negative conotation, being affiliated primarily with an “invasion” of the continent and by what today’s standards would likely be called the genocide of the Native American population.