Columbus Day needs more than new name

Although Columbus Day may be several months away, a debate over changing the name of the holiday is underway at Tufts. When we celebrate Columbus Day, we blindly pay homage to a long history of genocide and colonization. Rather than honor a man who played an instrumental role in initiating centuries of violence, Tufts should take long overdue action to change the name of Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples’ Day. In addition to the name change, the Tufts community should do something more to commemorate the holiday and act in solidarity with Native American communities across the country who still face the consequences of the historical events that Columbus Day celebrates.

The student body already supports renaming the holiday; last September, The Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate passed a resolution to do so. In order to actually make this change official, however, faculty members of the School of Arts and Sciences and Engineering must vote on it. The matter was originally supposed to come to a vote on Feb. 4, but the faculty decided to postpone its decision. Some faculty members argued that Senate should do more than simply rename the day, and asked that Senate propose opportunities for the community to take action on the holiday as well. The new faculty vote, on both the name change and Senate’s to-be-determined proposals for action, is now scheduled for March 25.

We applaud the faculty’s desire to take concrete action in support of Native American communities. While changing the name of Columbus Day is definitely a step in the right direction, Tufts and Boston as a whole have the resources to do much more. We can look to the many cities across the country that already commemorate Indigenous Peoples’ Day, including Denver, Seattle and Berkeley, for ideas on how to celebrate Native American culture and resistance.

Most importantly, we can work to ameliorate the near-total lack of education about Native American communities in American public schools. Owing in part to the way we celebrate holidays like Columbus Day and Thanksgiving, we are taught our country’s history from the perspective of the colonizers rather than the colonized. Unfortunately, many students go through their entire educations without spending any appreciable time learning about the people to whom this land originally belonged. Perhaps one aspect of the university’s Indigenous Peoples’ Day celebrations could include campus and community events aimed at educating students about this essential piece of our country’s history.

Tufts cannot continue to commemorate Columbus Day, a holiday that implicitly celebrates centuries of violence. Instead, we must take action and acknowledge the resistance and survival of Native American culture in the face of constant, institutionalized oppression. Celebrating Indigenous Peoples’ Day is a great first step, but we must follow this symbolic gesture with concrete action.