Chicago Public Schools are closed in recognition of Indigenous Peoples Day, but the rest of the city, county and state still officially mark the second Monday in October as Columbus Day. And as some Italians in the Chicago area celebrate with a parade downtown, Indigenous communities and progressive Italians say it’s time to move past Christopher Columbus as a figurehead and find new ways to honor Italian heritage.
Commemorating Columbus “speaks to how Indigenous history continues to be questioned as if it may be something that’s debatable,” said Arlene Duncan, interim executive director of the American Indian Center in Albany Park.
Duncan, of the Chippewa nation, said that although she can’t dictate how another group chooses to commemorate their culture, “I don’t believe that they have to be limited to one person; there are many ways you can celebrate your heritage.”
She added that many supporters of Columbus “choose to believe their own facts” but that the “historical trauma and the annihilation of our people cannot be denied.”
Gabriel Piemonte, founder of the Italian American Heritage Society of Chicago, said Columbus is a proxy.
“When we talk about Columbus, we’re talking about so-called white culture, white heritage [and] celebrating colonialism,” he said. “It is conceivable that we could celebrate Italian heritage and culture without celebrating the genocide of Indigenous people.”
In recent years, there’s been a racial reckoning around Columbus and the legacy of genocide and land theft. Activists toppled Columbus statues in 2020 amid the George Floyd protests, and the city removed others as a public safety matter. In its final 2022 report, the Chicago Monuments Project, commissioned by then-Mayor Lori Lightfoot, recommended permanent deinstallation of all Columbus monuments in the city.
That doesn’t sit well with the Joint Civic Committee of Italian Americans (JCCIA), which holds its annual Columbus Day parade Monday along State Street.
JCCIA President Ron Onesti is now seeking the right to bring one of the statues to Chicago for parades and special events.
“We want to be treated in a manner that would be fair and respectable — the same respect any other ethnic group would be afforded,” he said.
In 2021, his group filed a lawsuit to return a Columbus monument to Arrigo Park in Little Italy. He said the JCCIA is scheduled to talk with city officials in coming weeks over what should be done with the Columbus statues, but that both sides are still far apart.
A spokesperson for the city confirmed the parties are engaged in “settlement discussions.”
Before he became mayor, then-Cook County Commissioner Brandon Johnson proposed legislation in 2021 to replace Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples Day. As recently as June, a tweet by Ald. Rossana Rodriguez-Sanchez, 33rd Ward, sparked outrage from some groups.
But Piemonte, with the Italian American Heritage Society, said most Italians are ambivalent about Columbus: “Either they think he’s a good guy but he did some stuff wrong, or they think he’s a racist but they’re not going to say anything because they don’t want to upset their great-uncle who loves the guy,” he said, adding there are better ways to celebrate Italian heritage, such as festas during summer months.
He added the city should take decisive action in its talks with JCCIA about the statues.
“Mayor Johnson should just pull the Band-Aid off and tell these people these statues are never coming back,” Piemonte said. “He needs to destroy the pedestal in Grant Park so that there’s not even a possibility of that return.”
Piemonte also said the city should create new cultural anchors for Italian Americans and “do things that are symbolic and substantive.” He suggested erecting a monument to Italian immigrants, providing subsidies for Italian restaurants and retail on Taylor Street, and helping Italian Chicagoans who are aging in place and living in poverty. The city monument report echoed those sentiments.
Onesti is not backing down from Columbus, saying he does not want “other ethnic groups dictating … who their heroes and icons should be.” He added that Columbus’ detractors are “passing judgment on an individual who lived at a time [where] certain things were OK. There was nobody nice and [there were] a lot of issues going on 600 years ago.”
Esther Yoon-Ji Kang is a reporter on WBEZ’s Race, Class and Communities desk.
