CLEVELAND, Ohio– A national holiday in Ohio has come under scrutiny over the years, with some cities changing Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples Day. In Cleveland, the city council chose to keep Columbus day, while celebrating the Indigenous Peoples’ Day on a different day.

  • Columbus Day has come under scrutiny over the years
  • Some cities have changed Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples Day
  • Some celebrate the change, others condemn it

Some are celebrating that decision while others condemn it. 

The statue of Christopher Columbus sits in the little Italy neighborhood of Cleveland. A city where the meaning of Columbus Day is different, depending on who you ask. 

“It’s nice not to have to mourn extensively because the culture is worshiping if you want to call it that, honoring, if you want to call it that, the person who committed atrocities against us,” says Sundance, the Executive Director of the Cleveland American Indian Movement.

But he was disappointed to see Cleveland keep Columbus Day and honor Indigenous Peoples’ day in August, after backlash from many Italian American residents and elected leaders.

“I have nothing against Italian Americans. I have nothing against Italian heritage or culture. I do have something against a person who committed genocide and atrocity. And I don’t believe that it is appropriate to celebrate that person any day of the year,” says Sundance. 

But for Angie Spitalieri, who runs the Northern Ohio Italian American Foundation, and opposed changing the holiday, it’s about much more than Christopher Columbus. 

“It’s a way to show you’re being proud of being an Italian American, it’s the heritage, it’s the proudness to be together as a family, it’s to celebrate a day that we can take pride in,” says Angie Spitalieri, Executive Director of the Northern Ohio Italian American Foundation.

And that pride comes alive every Columbus day for the annual parade, 

where thousands take to the streets to celebrate Italian heritage. 

And while Spitalieri does support an Indigenous Peoples’ Day, she’s happy it’s in August and not October. 

People are looking at the negative instead of the positive, and I think that happens more and more in our society today. We want to keep that tradition, and it’s not just Columbus Day, it’s the whole month of October.