Indigenous Peoples Day: An Important Step Towards a Larger Movement for Racial Justice and Healing
By Asad Baig, Budget Analyst
In late August, the Los Angeles City Council voted to adopt Indigenous Peoples Day as a legal City holiday, to be celebrated on the second Monday of October, as the official replacement to Columbus Day. The Council sided with advocates who view the controversial figure as a symbol of oppression and mass genocide for Native Americans. The Council not only had the opportunity, but the responsibility, to stand on the right side of history. Considering our country’s volatile political climate, recognizing the atrocities committed against Indigenous peoples is an important step in the larger movement for racial equity and healing.
When we at Advancement Project California joined this push last year, we knew it wasn’t just about a name change. It wasn’t about media attention, public backlash, or politics. It was about the symbolic significance that Columbus Day holds in erasing a culture and celebrating a dark time in our country’s past.
The enduring perception that Christopher Columbus “discovered” America doesn’t recognize the displacement of the hundreds of millions of Indigenous people that already considered this continent home. Additionally, the atrocities committed against Indigenous peoples, including slavery, torture, and genocide, do not merit a day of celebration. Rather, it represents the legacy of misery and discrimination that still impact Native communities today. According to the National Congress of American Indians, American Indian and Alaska Native people compose just less than two percent of the U.S. population, yet experience the highest rates of crime, violence, and economic disparity.
Los Angeles is home to one of the largest urban Indigenous populations in the United States, and by so many measures, Angelenos are more self-aware and tolerant than ever before. Our progress hasn’t come easy, it hasn’t come without criticism, and has always come with a fight.
And despite our progress, we understand that much work remains to be done. But that in itself is the story of Los Angeles. A City of Natives. A City of immigrants. A City of refugees. We aren’t going to solve all our problems by one vote, but this vote, to right a wrong, to replace Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples Day, represents a small step in the right direction.
If we build upon this moment and understand that this is just the beginning, — then I have no doubt, that all across the City, from South Los Angeles to the San Fernando Valley, and from the Eastside to the Westside, our City’s best days are around just around the corner.
Organize.
March.
Kneel.
Fight.
Read more in the Los Angeles Times >>
L.A. City Council replaces Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples Day on city calendar