For many of us Italian Americans, October is a time of celebration. The twelfth of October marks the day that Christopher Columbus landed in the new world, in the process uniting two worlds, that of western civilization and that of what would almost 300 years later become the United States of America.
Unfortunately, Columbus’s legacy has been brought under increasing scrutiny, with accusations of racism, exploitation and genocide being hurled at the great Italian explorer. Such accusations typically ignore the fact that it was Anglo-Celtic Americans and Spanish, not Columbus himself, who are responsible for the abuses that Native Americans experienced subsequently.
Although Columbus did commit some human rights abuses against Native Americans on Hispaniola, there is no evidence that he carried out an orchestrated genocide against them the way Francisco Pizarro, Hernan Cortés, and Andrew Jackson would do later.
But that is irrelevant now. Whether Columbus was a Faustian spirit and pioneer of European exploration or a violent, psychopathic murderer is not important to social justice advocates in the 21st century. These are mere details. All that matters is that Columbus was European, i.e. “white” (despite his cappuccino-brown skin according to numerous portrayals). That means that he, like all other European masters of science, the arts, geography and civilization, is the devil incarnate, and the burden of proof is on anyone who says otherwise.
What the spike in attacks on Columbus Day and statues dedicated to him across the country over the past few years represent is a form of defamation and smearing, not only of Italian culture, but of western history in general. In short, it is an assault on objective reality.
In 1988, UNESCO stated that Italian culture had contributed either directly or indirectly to one third of the world’s identity. There is no number of defaced statues that can change that past. In short: Get over it. What we can do is look toward the future. This is precisely what the legacy of Christopher Columbus represents: pragmatism, humanism, and progress.
Despite the depredations of colonialism that followed his voyage, Columbus’ legacy today is an entire hemisphere steeped in an intellectual tradition which, among other things, values diversity.
Being involved with the Italic Institute of America, an intellectual society for young Italian Americans, I have come to understand the greatness of my heritage through an intellectual lens instead of the same, worn-out (and problematic) stereotypes typically assigned Italian culture in the media: mobsters and mafiosi, bimbos and buffoons, bigots and racists.
Before joining the organization, I’d believed what most Italian Americans believed, that Christopher Columbus was simply “a symbol of our heritage” that needs to be defended. Convincing?
Not to me, it wasn’t, and the Italic Institute concurs. According to Rosario Iaconis, senior analyst for the Italic Institute of America, “Christopher Columbus brought the gifts of his ancestral patrimony to the New World, and we are all the richer for it.”
This is the true meaning of Columbus Day, even though many will continue to disagree with its celebration. Columbus Day represents the first unification between the old western world and the new. Columbus is a symbol not only of Italian culture, but of unity. It is because of Italians like him, and others such as Emperor Augustus of the Roman Empire, that all of us –white, black, Hispanic or otherwise — have some Italian blood in our veins, and western influences in our laws, language, literature, arts and minds.
We are the west; Italy gave that to us.
Patrick Dimeo-Edwards is a writer based in Maryland.
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