October is National Italian American Heritage Month where an legal order was always signed by the standing President, I just researched to see if our current president has signed anything and did not find it, maybe you will find it or maybe we will never see it again.
It goes without saying our cultural history in America goes back to the 1800's where over 5.4 million Italian immigrated to the US to find a better life, We were vilified then as many Mexican Americans are now a days. Granted in my case, my parents came to the USA with all the proper paperwork and protocol. They did come here from a war torn Italy and my father created a foundation for my mother's arrival years later. Today over 26 million Americans are of Italian descent making us the largest ethnic group.
Stats from Italian American Foundation
With evolution comes controversy, and as many of us grew thinking, Columbus day signified a day to celebrate our heritage here in the USA, as we were all taught in elementary school that Christopher Columbus discovered America, I mean he was Italian. Well as we've become a more sensitive society to ethnicity and social awareness's, it has been deemed incorrect to celebrate Christopher Columbus because according to history he slayed and murdered Indigenous people in his quest to colonize the USA. Last time I checked this was called Thanksgiving a national and huge economic engine of a holiday where we are basically celebrating the slaughter of native Americans, but there is no argument there, instead we focus on Columbus Day and the so called heinous acts of the explorer. Instead in elementary school you were taught how the colonists had a dinner with the Indians and they were all so happy, were they?
In all honesty, we don't need Columbus Day or Thanksgiving they are both if you want to break it down celebrating the same thing. Its not about Italians at all. This country before you and I was built on explorers from the 'Old World' coming to the "New World" and yes, according to history did in fact use heinous acts to colonize or so they say, you and I the person who is about 100 years old would NOT know either. All we have is supposed history books. The moral of the story, we are here in America, we have contributed to the history of this country along with many other ethnicities and cultures. You can't deny history and label one person or one culture. This is America.
This was an article published in the NY TIMES; Take a look, a lot of great points. What do you think?
