A number of you offered additional thoughts on the issue. Some groups have been lobbying for the day to be commemorated as Indigenous People’s Day instead of Columbus Day. Reader Guest had a different suggestion:

I think we should go a step further and change it not to Indigenous People’s Day, but to American Genocide Day.  We honor veterans who have died in our wars, why not have a solemn day to commemorate the truth about American history?  I am afraid that “Indigenous People’s Day” will still miss the point and result in more cultural objectification of Native Americans without acknowledging the wrongs that they suffered at the hands of the colonists.

Allison wrote, “It’s a quaint relic of post-war America. Kind of like smallpox.” But another commenter, Tired…, wrote that Americans have “more practical things to focus on” than discussing the origins of Columbus Day, adding:

If anyone buys into the “I should feel guilty for something that I didn’t do that didn’t happen to anyone alive today” philosophy, I have a solution: give your property and belongings to the group you feel most guilty for, and then move back to the farthest back you can trace/guess your orgin [sic] to be.  Though I must warn you, if you go back to far [sic], and do some reading on whatever people you claim to originate from, you might find that as long as humans have been recording history, they have been waging war, and as a result, taking land, culture, food, property, etc. from each other.

Even though Columbus Day has passed us, you can still cast your vote in our poll and offer your own comments below.

This is how some opponents view Columbus Day.

Columbus Day became an official holiday after Italian immigrants lobbied for the recognition of Christopher Columbus, an Italian. In 1937, Franklin Roosevelt instituted the first federal-level recognition of the day. But in recent decades, Native American groups have pushed for the abolition of the holiday and for the creation of Indigenous People’s Day. Some say Columbus deserves little recognition as he “discovered” a land already inhabited by people. Others view the holiday as honoring a man who ushered in a mass genocide.

So, what’s your take on the issue? Cast your vote in our poll below: