Board of Aldermen 10-13-2020 Page 38
President Wilshire
Oh yeah, I’m going to get to him. Alderman O’Brien.
Alderman O’Brien
Thank you. | am going to, as most of you know | grew up in Boston and | went to a high school called Don
Bosco Technical High School. It was taught by the name Don Bosco who was taught by the selection
orders which is predominantly Italian. So let me do some favor to my former teachers in expressing an
Irishman coming to the defense of my Italian friends. Growing up in Boston, Columbus Day had a lot of
meanings particularly for the Italian American Community. In the north end it was greatly celebrated, it’s a
moment of pride for them. It’s a long-standing holiday before it even became a Federal Holiday. Like
Alderman Klee mentioned, it has its roots early in the United States in 1792 in New York by the Tammany
Hall Society. And it was also used by the Massachusetts Historical Society to celebrate the 300"
Anniversary of Columbus landing in the new world.
But at the 400" Anniversary, in 1892, right before that, there was a lynching in New Orleans where a mob
had murdered 171 Italian immigrants. The President at the time, Benjamin Harrison, declared Columbus
Day as a one-time National Celebration. The Proclamation was a wide effort to try to placate the Italian
Americans at the time and also used to ease diplomatic tensions with Italy. So to say that it doesn’t have
any embrace by the Italian American Community, it does. | don’t understand what Alderman Clemons
means by it going to a public vote, pitting on group against the other, because that’s exactly what you are
doing here. | would like to be very selective when | am going to throw a baby out with the bathwater. | have
a lot of empathy to the Native Americans and | support any other effort to recognize an Indigenous Peoples’
Day. But to do it on the backs of another group that has by long history, long history embraced Columbus
Day as their day. | don’t know of any other Italian American Day that they can embrace. | mean to me it
would almost be like you are taking away St. Patty’s Day away from me. I'd fight you tooth and nail on that
one.
The thing is, in 1934 as a result of lobbying and Alderman Klee brings out well | don’t know why you
support Columbus. Well you’ve got remember Columbus to America, he wasn’t a conquistador he was an
explorer. And when Columbus came to American he flew underneath a Spanish Principality Flag of
Ferdinand and Isabella, looking for the way to get to China at the time in the near east. It was the Knights of
Columbus that pushed for Columbus Day. Mainly because Columbus and the Spanish, it was the first time
that the religion of the Catholic Religion was brought to this particular nation. And to the Italian Americans
as you know, predominantly like us Irish are Catholic in nature. So it does have a religious connotation
equally as well to it and that’s why it has the support of the Knights of Columbus. | am a Hibernian; the
Knights of Columbus job is to protect churches in the Catholic faith and it’s the same as the Hibernians
because at one time in our American History the no name party burned Irish Catholic Churches. Because
of that, the Hibernians, our job was to protect the priest. And it’s the same with the Knights of Columbus.
So they embrace this particular day and other presidents have even done it. And it was in 1966 that it
really came to become more and celebrated. In 1969 much to the push by Mario Lucia from Buffalo, New
York, an Italian American, to become a National Federal Holiday. And why on this particular day, because
believe it or not it also coincides with the Canadian day that they celebrate Thanksgiving. They’ve been
celebrating their Thanksgiving since 1957 and it is recognized by the bond market and the US Postal
Service and many other agencies. As a matter of fact, even branches of our military it is very close to the
founding father’s birthday of the United States Navy which was founded on October 13 in 1775. And
believe it or not, Columbus Day being a fellow sailor | guess, also observes Columbus Day as well as the
Marine Corps. They are rewarded with a 72 or 96 hour liberty period. | support most definitely like | say my
empathy is great on having a day to have an Indigenous People Day. Definitely it needs to be done, but to
do it on the back of another ethnic group, prejudice of one group first is to bring up over the prejudice of
another group does not equal to a positive reaction. So | am not going to support this although | do support
an Indigenous Peoples’ Day.
