COLUMBUS DAY

This holiday commemorates Christopher Columbus' arrival in the New World in October 1492. In New York, the Italian community celebrates and parades on Fifth Avenue to celebrate the navigator, considered a national hero. The celebration nevertheless met with strong opposition from defenders of the indigenous populations, for whom celebrating Columbus Day was tantamount to celebrating the massacres perpetrated by the settlers on the Amerindians. Many cities celebrate Indigenous Peoples Day instead, this is not (yet) the case in New York.