Columbus Day vs. Indigenous People Day

On Monday, October 7, students throughout the Fairfield-Suisun Unified School District (FSUSD), as well as many other school districts around the country, will have a recess from school. On many calendars, this holiday is labeled as Columbus Day, but not everyone will celebrate it for that reason.

Some groups have chosen to rename this day “Indigenous Peoples Day” to celebrate Native Americans rather than the man who is said to historically found the continent we now refer to as North America. The reason for this change in focus is because North America did not need to be found. There were already people living on the continent, indigenous people with their own culture and their own history.

Indigenous Peoples Day was first recognized in 1992, while Columbus Day was first acknowledged in the United States in 1937 when President Franklin D. Roosevelt made it a federal holiday.

Current people want to replace the honoring of Christopher Columbus with the recognition that the people in North America were important long before Columbus arrived and he did more harm to the population with his arrival.

Whatever day is celebrated on October 7, it will still give students and staff a much needed break from the first 6-weeks of the school year and will create a natural division for the next grading period.