Indigenous Peoples' March Calls For Statewide Observance Of Holiday

Activists and organizers demanded further action to support the needs and wishes of the Indigenous community — including statewide observance of Indigenous Peoples’ Day — in front of the Mass. State House on Saturday. On Monday, Indigenous Peoples’ Day will officially replace Columbus Day in Boston following an executive order signed by acting Mayor Kim Janey earlier this week.

“It's not just about culture,” said Jean-Luc Pierite, a member of the Tunica-Biloxi tribe and president of the North American Indian Center of Boston, who helped to organize the rally. “It is about different Indigenous nations and the defense of their sovereignty, the efforts to rematriate land and natural resources back to the original peoples and to continue being stewards for the local ecosystem.”

According to Pierite, to be Indigenous not only means to be native, but also to have a resilient government and remain on the land regardless if a nation state occupies that same space.

Indigenous nations with a historical and continued presence in Mass. include the Massachusett, the Nipmuc, and the Wampanoag tribes. At today’s event on the Boston Common, members of various tribes and their allies advocated for the protection of Indigenous heritage, greater transparency of Indigenous history in education, and the representation of Indigenous communities in local government.

For Tylee Tosia, a student at Tufts University and member of the Diné tribe who also attended last year’s march, Boston’s observance of Indigenous Peoples' Day is long overdue.

“Finally. It took long enough,” said Tosia. “Now we just have to make sure it goes to the state level.”

Columbus Day was founded in 1934 after the Knights of Columbus and members of the Italian-American community pushed for cultural recognition through the commemoration of Christopher Columbus.

However, in recent years the continued celebration of the federally-recognized holiday has been met with controversy and calls to address the problematic legacy of its namesake. Besides being falsely credited as having discovered the Americas, the arrival of Columbus also has been linked directly to enslavement, introducing deadly diseases and the genocide of Indigenous peoples.

“There's no question of the crimes against humanity that he committed here within the Western Hemisphere,” said Pierite. “When we actually look at what's going on with our people today, we see some of those same beats tied to that legacy of colonialism which Columbus brought.”

Pierite added that the revisionist version of Columbus’s history so often taught in school curricula is used to assimilate Indigenous students, furthering the erasure of their culture — and when students speak up about the truth they have learned from their people, they are punished.

“Today means that Indigenous peoples are not only seen,” said Pierite. “But our knowledge is actually affirmed.”

While today’s event celebrated the official instatement of Indigenous Peoples' Day, some Bostonians have vocally resisted the change. For example, before Acting Mayor Janey signed the executive order on Wednesday, someone in the crowd interjected: “What about the Italian-Americans?”

Janey, the first Black woman to be acting mayor of Boston, responded, “We should celebrate all cultures...justice is not a zero-sum game.”

Other members of the Italian-American community agree with the executive order. At today’s rally, organizations like Italian-Americans for Indigenous Peoples' Day showed their support for renaming the holiday.

“There are certainly many, many of us who feel no pride in Columbus,” said Heather Leavell, co-founder of Italian-Americans for Indigenous Peoples' Day.

“It's just time that we listen to Indigenous people, hear what they're telling us, learn from them, center them, and celebrate them,” said Leavell. “It's time.”

Taylor Blackley is a general assignment reporter and staff photographer/videographer at The Scope: Boston and a Northeastern graduate student.

Elena Giardina is a reporter at The Scope: Boston and an undergraduate journalism and English student at Northeastern University.