Opposition to Columbus Day Ignores Its Origins in Combating Anti-Italian Bigotry and Amounts to Discrimination Against Italian Americans
Source: https://www.facebook.com/americanspectator/. "Anti-Italian Discrimination: The Bigotry Behind the Columbus Cancellers | The American Spectator | USA News and Politics." October 12, 2026. spectator.org
The Gist
The author argues that Columbus Day was created to counter vicious anti-Italian bigotry after a mass lynching, and that it has long stood for Italian American acceptance. So when the left tries to abolish it or replace it with Indigenous Peoples' Day, it ignores that history and effectively discriminates against Italian Americans, as part of a wider attack on Western civilization.
Conclusion
Efforts to cancel Columbus Day or replace it with Indigenous Peoples' Day amount to anti-Italian discrimination, because the left ignores the holiday's origins in the fight against anti-Italian bigotry and its meaning to Italian Americans, and is driven by a broader anti-Western-civilization agenda.
Premises
- Columbus Day was established in 1892 by President Benjamin Harrison to calm tensions after the 1891 New Orleans lynching of eleven Italian immigrants, the largest single mass lynching in American history.
- Anti-Italian and anti-Catholic prejudice was pervasive in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, including widespread Ku Klux Klan activity (e.g., in Pennsylvania) targeting Italian Catholics, as in the author's own family history.
- For Italian Americans, Columbus Day was a sign of acceptance, honoring one of their own as the discoverer of their adopted country; it remains meaningful to them and to other Catholics, such as Knights of Columbus members.
- Progressives in schools and universities fail to teach this history, and the left's view of bigotry is selectively limited to preferred groups of people of color, so it cannot conceive of prejudice against white Europeans.
- Italian Americans and others who value the holiday are hurt by moves to banish it or replace it with Indigenous Peoples' Day, and they perceive this as an attempt to take away their holiday.
- The campaign against Columbus is part of a deeper project against Western civilization, treating figures like Columbus as 'Dead White European Males' deserving contempt.
Assumptions
- A holiday's founding purpose and its meaning to a group determine whether criticizing or abolishing it constitutes discrimination against that group.
- Italian Americans' perception that the cancellation is discrimination is sufficient evidence that it is discrimination.
- Critics of Columbus Day are motivated by hostility to Western civilization and white Europeans, rather than by concern for the historical treatment of Indigenous peoples.
- Historical anti-Italian persecution is relevant to the legitimacy of present-day criticism of Columbus's legacy.
- Honoring Columbus is inseparable from honoring Italian American identity, so opposing one means opposing the other.
- The left is monolithic and uniformly indifferent to anti-Italian prejudice.