{"id":108871,"date":"2015-10-15T20:17:59","date_gmt":"2015-10-16T02:17:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/out-with-columbus-day-in-with-indigenous-peoples-day\/"},"modified":"2015-10-15T20:17:59","modified_gmt":"2015-10-16T02:17:59","slug":"out-with-columbus-day-in-with-indigenous-peoples-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/out-with-columbus-day-in-with-indigenous-peoples-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Out with Columbus Day, in with Indigenous Peoples Day?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><!-- gallery:431bcb24-28e4-4c0f-b1f1-5e12db9d22d3 --><\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video wp-block-embed-youtube naviga-video-embed\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/pwcgyyN_png\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>Albuquerque; St. Paul, Minnesota; Portland, Oregon; Alaska; South Dakota; Olympia, Washington; Berkeley, California; Minneapolis; Seattle; Andarko, Oklahoma.<\/p>\n<p>Should Durango join this list of cities that have switched from Columbus Day to some version of Indigenous Peoples Day?<\/p>\n<p>Fort Lewis College student Ruthie Edd thinks so, and she\u2019s not alone.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRuthie came to our committee to ask for our support,\u201d said Mariah Bulaywaghee Gachupin, co-chairwoman of this year\u2019s Real History of the Americas, which held its eighth outing Monday. \u201cWe agreed it was a good idea.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>There are a lot of reasons the change makes sense for Durango, Edd said, including the history of the honoree.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWith regard to Columbus\u2019 character, historical accounts verify that he personally enslaved and colonized thousands of indigenous people during his lifetime,\u201d she said, \u201cand opened the door for war, disease, the organized slave trade and the death of nearly 90 percent of indigenous populations. Columbus played a pivotal role in both the trans-Atlantic slave trade and one of the world\u2019s largest genocides.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps the most important reason for Durango to make the change, Edd said, is its location. Situated near both reservations in Colorado, the Southern Ute and Ute Mountain Ute Indian reservations, near a wealth of sites of pre-Columbian populations as preserved at Mesa Verde National Park and Chimney Rock and Canyons of the Ancients national monuments, as well as being seated near Mount Hesperus, one of the Navajo Nation\u2019s sacred mountains, Durango is clearly set in Indian Country.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDurango is also the hometown of Fort Lewis College,\u201d Edd said, \u201ca former Native American boarding school and one of two colleges nationwide to offer a tuition waiver for Native American students.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Most history books in the United States, The Atlantic writer Jake Flanigan said, cover Native Americans as discovered by Columbus, sharing a Thanksgiving with Puritan pilgrims, defeating Custer at the Battle of the Little Bighorn and dying on the brutal Trail of Tears.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEssentially, this educational strategy frames the entire Native American experience as one of tragedy,\u201d Flanigan said in a piece on the website Quartz, \u201cwhich, over the last 300 years or so, it certainly has been \u2013 but totally neglects the fact that pre-Columbian America was just as diverse, socially and politically complicated, and frankly as exciting as Europe or the Middle East. There was warfare, diplomatic intrigue, rich mythology, innovation in the arts, sciences and mathematics and so much more going on than modern history books would have you believe.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That exciting story is a large part of the purpose for the Real History of the Americas at FLC, which had a theme of \u201cTelling our stories through dance\u201d this year. Among the activities offered Monday were an opening prayer by Betty and Eddy Box Jr., a \u201cBasket Weaving Dance\u201d by FLC alumna Anne Pesata, and I am Dance workshop with facilitators from Common Ground, a bilingual \u201cStar-Spangled Banner\u201d in English and Din\u00e9 (Navajo) by FLC student Olivia Duncan and a performance by Ballet Folkl\u00f3rico de Durango.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe saw dance as a way of healing,\u201d Gachupin, who self-identifies from the Jemez Pueblo, said. \u201cSometimes it\u2019s easier to move to a beat or a tone rather than using your voice.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A 12-hour experience, with attendees coming and going throughout the day, Real History drew from a diverse crowd of all ages.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy biggest focus was making people feel welcome,\u201d said co-chairwoman Stephanie Lefthand, who self-identifies as being of Taos Pueblo and Spanish heritage, \u201cincluding everybody and giving it that family feel.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Real History\u2019s goal is to take a different look at history through the viewpoints of Native American, African, Hispanic, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning and Asian peoples.<\/p>\n<p>That was the focus of Las Cafeteras\u2019 \u201cRacism: \u2018Ain\u2019t Nobody Got Time for That!\u201d Las Cafeteras, this year\u2019 guest artists, hail from East Los Angeles and have created a participatory workshop on breaking down stereotypes. Band member and playwright Daniel French said history tends to be written from the perspective of white, wealthy, educated, able-bodied men.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhose story is it in books?\u201d he asked. \u201cIt\u2019s their story, a certain kind of story being told from a certain place.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>French told Columbus\u2019 story from the perspective of the Tainos, the indigenous tribe of the island in the Caribbean Sea where the explorer first landed.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWho the hell is that?\u201d he imagined the Tainos saying. \u201cWe found some white-skinned dude on the other side of the island, he doesn\u2019t have papers or anything.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"mailto:abutler@durangoherald.com\">abutler@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"naviga-scoreboard\">\n<h4 class=\"scoreboard-title\">If you go<\/h4>\n<p>Joely Proudfit, the director of the California Indian Culture and Sovereignty Center at the California State University San Marcos, will present Beyond the Stereotype at 6 p.m. Oct. 28 in Noble Hall Room 125. The lecture is free and open to the public.<br>\n                To learn more about Las Cafeteras, the guest artists at Real History of the Americas for 2015, visit www.youtube.com\/watch?v=9xv-FjbXaqk to view their video of \u201cLa Bamba Rebelde.\u201d<br>\n                To learn more about stereotypes, view www.youtube.com\/watch?v=DWynJkN5HbQ for \u201cWhat kind of Asian are you?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>College celebrates Real History of the Americas<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":108872,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5794,5735],"tags":[13,198,912,561,316],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-108871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education","category-news","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-history","tag-national-or-ethnic-minority","tag-native-american","tag-video"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108871"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108871\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108871"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=108871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}