Indigenous Peoples Day added to University calendar

By: Anna Radinsky/Assistant News Director

 

This is the first year that the Student Government Association will recognize Indigenous People’s Day on Columbus Day.

The holiday will fall on the same day every year, the second Monday of October, along with Columbus Day.

“For native peoples, [Christopher Columbus] is not a hero. He’s a genocide prosecutor, dominator, and destroyer,” said Dennis Wiedman, the founding director of the FIU Global Indigenous Forum, a group of faculty that provide events and academic programs related to Indigenous topics.

The Global Indigenous Group, a student-led organization of Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples, is working to remove Columbus Day from the University calendar.

“A lot of people say that they want to keep celebrating Columbus Day because that’s their heritage,” said William Sanchez, president of GIG. “I would argue that they might not want to celebrate that part of their heritage because it’s not too nice.”

In some countries in Latin America, Columbus Day is instead called “Día de la Raza,” or Day of the Race.

“It’s a day that people from Central and South America were raped by Spaniards to have a new race and put indigenous people in the past,” said Joseph Morales, the cultural chair of GIG.

To celebrate Indigenous Peoples Day, the GIG and the GIF will be hosting events throughout the week of Oct. 8.  

The first day of events is on FIU Indigenous Peoples Day on Monday, Oct. 8 from 11-2 p.m.

There will be a meet and greet of Indigenous-related organizations to share their purposes, activities and concerns in the north lawn of the Graham Center.

On Wednesday, Oct. 10, a presentation by the members of the Kuyayky Foundation will discuss how the Hispanic/Latinx identity is enforced on indigenous peoples to oppress their own identity.

According to Wiedman, 3-18 percent of people from Cuba have DNA genes related to the aboriginal people that existed before the arrival of Christopher Columbus.

To Morales, Indigenous people at the University either don’t know that they have Indigenous DNA, they reject that part of their identity or they don’t speak out about the issues.

“A lot of Indigenous people have a mind-my-own-business kind of mentality… [GIG] is trying to counter that because we are dying as people,” said Morales.

On Thursday, Oct. 11, a group of panelists will lead a discussion on the challenges that Indigenous women face in the world.

Ever since the start of colonialism, while forces of outsiders took over resources on Indigenous land, women were exploited, raped and killed.

The main incentive of the Global Indigenous Group is to educate the public on the history, culture and knowledge of Indigenous peoples around the world.

For more information on the FIU Global Indigenous Group, visit their Facebook through ‘GIGFIU’ and Instagram through @fiugig.

For more information on the Global Indigenous Forum visit Indigenous.fiu.edu.

 

Featured image retrieved from Unsplash