Los Angeles Replaces Columbus Day With Indigenous Peoples Day

Los Angeles has just joined the ranks of American cities that have discarded Columbus Day as a national holiday, instead choosing to rename the celebration as Indigenous Peoples Day.

The Los Angeles City Council made the decision on Wednesday in light of many Americans seeing Columbus as a representative of slavery, racism, and genocide. The newly-named holiday instead chooses to celebrate the natives and indigenous people who were marginalized, enslaved, and oppressed at the hands of Columbus and his associated explorers.

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Columbus Day, which has been recognized as a national holiday since 1937, falls on the second Monday of October. Indigenous People Day will reportedly fall on the same day and it will remain a paid holiday for city employees.

Other U.S. cities that have adopted the new name is Albuquerque, New Mexico; Seattle, Washington; Phoenix, Arizona; and Portland, Oregon. Indigenous People’s Day was originally adopted in Berkeley, California as a means of protesting the holiday’s offensive nature.

“This gesture of replacing Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples Day is a very small step in apologizing and in making amends,” said L.A. Councilman Mike Bonin.

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