Mayor Mike Spano recently called on New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio “to direct his New York City Department of Education to reverse their thoughtless and insensitive decision to eliminate Columbus Day from the school calendar.
“Taking Columbus Day away and replacing it with Italian Heritage and Indigenous Peoples’ Day is an outright insult. I agree there should be an Indigenous Peoples’ Day, but not the same day when Americans celebrates Italian heritage,” said Spano.
The City of Yonkers holds one of the biggest and most popular Columbus Day Parade’s in New York State.
On May 3, the NYC Department of Education released their school calendar for the upcoming 2021-22 school year. On October 11, NYC schools were to be closed for Indigenous People’s Day, replacing Columbus Day. After an outroar, NYC Mayor Bill deBlasio came up with a compromise that satisfied nobody, with the new school holiday to be called “Italian Heritage Day/Indigenous People’s Day.”
Italian Americans across New York State were pissed off. Long Island Congressman Tom Suozzi said, “It’s absolutely outrageous that the Department of Education did this, and I’m going to try to build a coalition to fight this. Columbus Day has been in place for a long, long period of time, and it’s important to Italian Americans who faced tremendous discrimination in this country,”
The most prominent Italian-American in NY State Government, Gov. Andrew Cuomo also blasted the decision. “You ready for a shocker? I disagree with it. I know you’re taken aback. Cities have certain authority and a city can declare a city holiday. When it comes to appreciating and respecting Indigenous people, I agree 100%. They deserve much more than a holiday. Columbus Day is a day where we celebrate the Italian-American contribution to this state. It’s not either/or. We’re not drawing lines and dividing. You don’t have to exclude Italians to celebrate indigenous people.”
Longtime New Yorker and Westchester resident and actor Chaz Palminteri said, “For millions of Italians across the country and world, it will always be Columbus Day. To us, it’s our day. It’s in our minds and in our hearts. It doesn’t make sense to me.”
The question now, in New York City, is what happens to the Columbus monument, located at Columbus Circle? Will the monument, now on the register of historic places, be taken down by force during the next protest? Will the NYC Council and Mayor deBlasio change the name of Columbus Circle?
One Italian-American we spoke to at Dom & Vinny’s Pizza in Yonkers told us, “when is the cancel culture going to stop?”
