Teachers Report on Teaching Indigenous Peoples' Day

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Brian Lehrer: Now, as we said we're going to do, we're going to wrap up the show by opening the phones for teachers on this school holiday. For New York City Public Schools, for example, today is Italian Heritage/Indigenous Peoples Day. My wall calendar and the federal government still call it Columbus Day. You can go from the Red Hawk Native American Arts Council's Indigenous Peoples Day celebration on Randall's Island today to the 79th annual Columbus Day parade just getting started along Fifth Avenue. There's an Indigenous Peoples parade next Saturday, I understand. The question is, teachers, on this day off from school, how have you navigated this change of cultural direction? How have you navigated this change of name? 212-433-WNYC. 212-433-9692. We know that objections to celebrating Christopher Columbus as an individual have been around for years, so complicated by the fact that he became a symbol of pride for Italian immigrants and their descendants. Teachers, how do you teach this hybrid holiday of Italian heritage and Indigenous Peoples Day linked only by this cultural shift in how we see Christopher Columbus? Teachers, let us hear from you. How are you doing it?

If you've been in the system for a long time, whatever school system, and you used to talk about Columbus Day and the Nina and the Pinter and the Santa Maria and Christopher Columbus in 1492 sailed the Ocean Blue and, "Discovered America," how have you evolved in the way you've been teaching this holiday or in the way you've been directed by your principal or your school district to teach this holiday? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Are you addressing the growing population of indigenous peoples from other parts of the Americas now trying to make New York home that we were just talking about? Has the influx of indigenous migrants changed the way you teach about this holiday just based on the recent news? Call us. 212-433-WNYC. 212-433 -9692. Has the controversy over Christopher Columbus broadened the way you teach about Italian-American contributions to this city and this country? 212-433-9692. Because I said before that's a complicating factor in all this. Maybe it would be easier to de-emphasize Columbus as a hero and see him more as a colonizer if Columbus Day didn't also become a source of Italian identity and recognizing and recognition for Italian identity and celebration of Italian identity through Columbus. Maybe some Italian-American teachers listening want to call and talk about how you disentangle those things if you try to do that for your Italian students or anyone else. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692.

In general, on any aspect of that, teachers on the school holiday-- it's a school holiday. It's Italian. How have you navigated this change? 212-433-WNYC. How are you teaching this holiday? 212-433-9692. We'll take your calls right after this.

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. All right, teachers, how are you teaching this holiday? Formerly Columbus Day, now Indigenous Peoples Day/Italian Heritage Day, and still to many, Columbus Day. How are you handling it? 212-433-WNYC. Mike in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. I see you're a high school social studies teacher. Thank you so much for calling in.

Mike: Yes, I teach US history in a large high school in Brooklyn. How are you, Brian?

Brian Lehrer: Good. How are you? How do you handle this? Is there a curriculum? Is it official?

Mike: Well, the way it's handled is it's actually not complicated. We let the kids decide. The aim of the lesson is, should we celebrate Columbus Day or should we honor Columbus with a statue on Columbus Circle? You give the kids different resources and different perspectives. Here's the Italian-American perspective, here's the perspective of somebody that's indigenous, and you let them figure it out and argue it out and let them reach their own decision. I think the important thing is that they hear the multiple perspectives, the Italian-American perspective, the indigenous perspective, why it became a holiday in 1937, what's the history of Columbus and how he treated the indigenous people, what's the history of immigration, which you just spoke about, and how Italian-Americans were treated in this country. I think you take all those perspectives, and unfortunately, it doesn't come out such a binary, easy answer of yes or no. Correct?

Brian Lehrer: Yes. Sounds like you're a really good teacher to make the students think and give them multiple points of view and have them interact with each other and with you to synthesize. I'd send my kid to your class any day from what that call sounded like. Mike, thank you very much. Paul in Springfield, New Jersey, you're on WNYC. Hi, Paul.

Paul: Hi, Brian, and my wife loves you. I am a social studies teacher in high school, just like the gentleman from Brooklyn, and I did a couple of things in recent days. We read a fairly detailed text on Jamestown that provided perspective, including the fact that the Native Americans did become violent in the middle of all of the brutalities by the English settlers. The other thing I did was that the board of my employer issued a resolution that only mentioned Columbus's heroism, spirit of adventure, and his great triumph, and all the good. The next page only mentioned that it was Italian Heritage Month. I searched and searched. There was no resolution regarding the Indigenous peoples, and I had the students critique that using their knowledge and own experiences.

Brian Lehrer: Did you get any blowback from management?

Paul: I'm nearing retirement, so I am a little less concerned about blowback, but I feel I did it in a way that called on the students to be critical thinkers. I didn't lead them on in any way.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. I guess the culture war is alive and well in your school district.

Paul: I wouldn't say that. [chuckles]

Brian Lehrer: Paul, thank you very [crosstalk]--

Paul: I've just--

Brian Lehrer: Go ahead.

Paul: Thank you very much.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you very much. He's not retired yet, so he wouldn't say that. Anne in Staten Island, you're on WNYC. Hi, Anne.

Anne: Hi. Good afternoon, Brian. I'm a big fan, many, many years. This is a subject I'm so passionate about. I'm a retired New York City public school teacher. I was an English teacher for 35 years, and the latter part of my career, I was the school librarian. For the quincentenary in 1992, I was hired by the district office, district 31, to write with colleagues from elementary school, I was in the middle school, and high school to write a curricula for addressing the issue of Columbus Day with the 500th anniversary. My colleagues and I worked all summer. We were told we would be paid $100. They thought four hours would satisfy the problem. We worked days and weeks, and we came up with really wonderful ideas. We presented it to the then supretendant, may he rest in peace, who censored it immediately and told us he could not release it until after Columbus Day because Staten Island had one of the highest percentage of Italian people living on Staten Island, and he thought it would offend them. That's way back in 1992. My whole career, I discussed with my students this topic. We read Howard Zinn, A People's History of the United States, which is as relevant as ever.

Brian Lehrer: Which opens with Columbus and some of his atrocities in the very first lines. I've read that book, sure.

Anne: Right. As you can see, I'm still very passionate about this. I really feel so strongly that we have to move away from legends and myths, and we have to educate everyone to be aware of the history of the so-called discovery of the new world. There were millions of people living here when Columbus came. The gentleman I heard-- I think the first, I really appreciated his comment on multi-perspectives. That's what we wrote our curricula. We had multi-perspectives. We even had a section called Lifestyles of the lesser-known-- Remember that one lifestyles of the rich and famous [crosstalk]--

Brian Lehrer: Rich and famous. Yes, so this is the opposite? [laughs]

Anne: [inaudible 00:10:06] [crosstalk]. We had a museum. The principal gave us a museum. The Staten Island Advance sent a reporter and we talked, my colleagues and I, in the school. We had students coming in for a couple of weeks, you'd get 1,200 students to go through that, and we were censored by the Staten Island Advance. The article never appeared. The reason I'm telling you is that I'm hoping, I'm 76 now, I'm hoping in my lifetime to see these major changes in people being aware of a multi-perspective of Columbus Day. Thank you for listening to my [inaudible 00:10:49] [crosstalk].

Brian Lehrer: Thank you, Anne. Thank you very much. Since you brought it up, I just opened a People's History of the United States to chapter one. Here's how it starts. "Arawak men and women, naked, tawny, and full of wonder emerged from their villages onto the island's beaches and swam out to get a closer look at the strange big boat. When Columbus and his sailors came ashore carrying swords speaking oddly, the Arawaks ran to greet them, brought them food, water, gifts. He later wrote of this in his log, 'They brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things which they exchanged for the glass beads and hawks bells. They willingly traded everything they owned. They were well built with good bodies and handsome features. They do not bear arms and we do not know them for I showed them a sword. They took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. They have no iron. Their spears are made of cane. They would make fine servants.'" That's the beginning of Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States. Susan in Bergen County, you're on WNYC. You're going to get our last word here, Susan. You want to talk about something that happened on Columbus Day once upon a time, right?

Susan: Well, it actually-- It wasn't on Columbus Day. There was, in Louisiana, many Sicilians working in the 1800s, and there was a murder of a police officer. 11 Sicilian immigrants were lynched. Sicilians tend to be darker skinned, and there was obviously some kind of racial motivation there and so on. The interesting twist is that at a certain point, the Italian government was going to declare war in the United States because they considered these Sicilian people Italian citizens. To make up for this in 1891, they declared a Columbus Day. This Columbus day I don't think was chosen by-- I'm Italian American. From Italian Americans, it was a response in action by the Italian government. Someone in the Congress, or I don't know all the details, someone picked Columbus as a figure [crosstalk]--

Brian Lehrer: Good piece of history, which unfortunately, we're going to have to leave there because the show is over, but there you go. In fact, my producer was fact-checking that in real-time, and yes, Susan basically got that right. Thanks to all of you for your calls on this Columbus-- I mean, indigenous people-- I mean Italian-- Whatever you celebrate. Thanks for calling.

 

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