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10-13-2024 10:09pm
Town of Westwood Observing "Indigenous Peoples' Day" on Monday, October 14th, not "Columbus Day," with Office Closure
Darlene Cancell
Editor
Town of Westwood offices are closed this year for "Indigenous Peoples' Day," marking a progression of point of view of town officials and likely many residents, in the use of the holiday moniker as preferential to "Columbus Day," as used in the past.
In 2022 and prior years, the town celebrated the second Monday of October as "Columbus Day." In 2023, the town announced its offices closed on its website with the reason being simply given as the Monday holiday, with neither "Columbus Day" nor "Indigenous Peoples' Day" specified as the reason. Now, in 2024, the online Town of Westwood calendar marks October 14, 2024 as "Indigenous Peoples Day" in Westwood.
In making the change, Westwood is part of a trend in communities across the nation that prefer to highlight indigenous peoples rather than the devastation to that community for which many people hold Christopher Columbus and Europeans responsible. Pew Research Center last year noted the trend of people declining to celebrate Columbus Day, noting:
"Columbus Day seems to be fading as a widely observed holiday, having come under fire in recent decades from Native American advocates and others, who’ve argued that Christopher Columbus isn’t an appropriate person to celebrate."
- Drew DeSilver, "Working on Columbus Day or Indigenous Peoples' Day? It depends on where your job is," pewresearch.org (Oct. 5, 2023).
In Massachusetts, legislators have repeatedly proposed a change of the Columbus Day holiday to Indigenous Peoples Day, but such proposals remain bills and have yet to become official acts and laws of the Commonwealth.
At federal level, proposed legislation has been introduced in the current Congress, as it has in the past, to change the federal holiday that falls on the second Monday of October from "Columbus Day" to "Indigenous Peoples Day." Both the House (H.R.5822) and the Senate (S. 2970) have introduced such language, but so far, no official act has yet resulted to rename the federal holiday at a national level.
This year, President Biden has again recognized the second Monday of October as both Columbus Day and Indigenous Peoples Day. He has issued separate proclamations to commemorate Christopher Columbus's historic voyage and recognize the contributions of Italian Americans in shaping the history of the United States on one hand, while also recognizing the second Monday of October as one opportunity among many that he has taken to "to heal the wrongs of the past and to change course and move forward."
