Board of Aldermen 10-13-2020 Page 34
Alderman Clemons
Thank you. Yeah | will be brief as well. | know | also want to clear up something that was said in public
comment and | do want to also recognize that | completely understood from the perspective that Alderman
Lopez was talking about in the sense that my objection that evening was to see if we could move it to get it
done for this Columbus Day which was not possible due to the calendar. | think people brought up that we
wanted to hear from constituents and have more time and things like that. The Bill went through the normal
process. Just like anything else, so to say that it didn’t have, you know, that nobody knew about it or
anything like that is just false. It went through our normal Legislative Process.
The other thing that | want to clear up as well is that it is not without precedent that this City changes the
name of a Holiday because we have done it before. When New Hampshire refused for years to adopt
Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Nashua did it well before. There is precedent here for doing that and | think
that we should move forward and adopt Indigenous Peoples’ Day for all the reasons that have been stated
by my colleagues. Thank you.
President Wilshire
Thank you. Alderman Klee?
Alderman Klee
Thank you, Madam President. | have to say that | went through school like so many other people learning
that Columbus discovered America. The truth is that | have now learned that Columbus didn’t discover
America, he discovered the lands that were called the Americas. And he never stepped foot on the soils of
North America. And it confused me why within North America we were celebrating a man that never
actually stepped on our soil. So | decided to do a little homework as to why we are here. So if you don’t
mind, I’d kind of like to share some of my knowledge, very little knowledge. And you know what they say
about people with little knowledge.
The very first recorded day of celebrating Columbus Day was New York City in 1792. That was the 300"
Anniversary of his voyage to the Americas. This was lobbied by the Knights of Columbus which was
primarily an Italian Roman Catholic membership to create a proclamation urging Americans to celebrate the
day. In 1937, FDR created the first federal observance of Columbus Day. In 1972, President Nixon
established the modern holiday by Presidential Proclamation.
So what | learned is that this Holiday was originally created to celebrate Italian Americans. And the name
of Christopher Columbus was just kind of “insert here”. So | believe that, as | said, Christopher Columbus
was an easy grab. The truth is I'd love to see we celebrate and honor Italian Americans and not celebrate
Christopher Columbus who never set foot on our soils. While | am giving my opinion I'd also like to see an
Indigenous Peoples’ Day created and become a Federal Holiday. | don’t think that they should get a
recycled holiday. | know it’s to cover up the Columbus, the name of Christopher Columbus and | don’t
blame people. I’m sorry, but from everything I’ve read about everything that he’s done, it is horrendous. He
was taken back in shackles to Spain because of some of the things he did as a Governor, granted, political
reasons 6 weeks later they released and gave him money for another voyage, but that’s another story for
another day.
Having said this, | Know that | am not going to be popular with my colleagues, but | would like to make a
motion to put this on the ballot for November 2021. And the reason | want to do this is simply because |
think that we are making a chance and it’s not like Martin Luther King Day where we took Civil Rights Day
that New Hampshire wanted and we changed it to Martin Luther King Day. We didn’t alienate any group.
By doing this, we are alienating another group. | would love to see a Proclamation that made a particular
day here in Nashua, Indigenous Peoples’ Day. | think that would be the right thing to do. | think on the
Federal Level | would love to see a Federal Holiday. But having said that, | don’t know the protocol of
putting a motion through, | feel that it won’t go but! also do want to put it to my colleagues. Attorney
