Columbus who? Decolonizing the calendar in Latin America

This is the time of patriotism in Latin America, as in lots of other countries commemorate their independence from colonial powers. From July to September, public squares in countries from Mexico to Honduras and Chile fill with crowds dressed and painted in national colours, in parades participants are dressed as independence heroes, fireworks fill the sky and schoolchildren reenact historic battles.

Beneath these nationalist representations ripples an uneasy tide: the colonial legacies that also link America to its Iberian conquerors. And because the calendar turns to October, one other holiday highlights similar tensions – Columbus Day.

Since 1937, the USA has… celebrated the vacation on the second Monday of the month to commemorate the explorer's arrival within the New World in 1492. It stays a federal holiday, although many states and cities rename it.Indigenous Peoples Day“and rejected Christopher Columbus as a logo of imperialism.

Most Latin Americans now know October twelfth as “Día de la Raza,” or race day, which also celebrates the arrival of Columbus within the New World and the following flood of Iberian conquerors. But the commemoration of this event is much more vital in these lands, where the Spanish Empire is home to essentially the most lucrative territorial assets and far-reaching spiritual conquests. A number of days before she takes office in September 2024: Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum reiterated the demands of her predecessor that the King of Spain apologizes for the genocide and exploitation of the conquest 500 years ago.

As a historian of Latin AmericaI paid attention to how calendars signal a nation's “official” values ​​and the way countries wrestle with the meaning of those holidays.

Columbus Day

The first encounter between the Aztec emperor Montezuma and the conqueror Hernando Cortés took place on November 8, 1519 – the latter supported by an entourage of 300 Spaniards, hundreds of indigenous allies and slaves, and a whole bunch of Africans, free or not.

This moment of contact initiated Mexico's 500-year transformation right into a “mestizo” nation: a hybrid identity with largely European and indigenous roots. During the colonial era, racial differences were codified in law those with “pure” Spanish bloodlines enjoyed legal privileges over the racially mixed categories subordinate to them. The nineteenth century brought independence from Spain and liberal ideas that in principle promoted racial equality, but in point of fact European influence prevailed.

That was Spain first suggested the Día de la Raza, held on October 12, 1892 to commemorate the four-hundredth anniversary of Columbus' arrival within the Americas – a celebration of Spain's contribution to mestizo racial mixing.

The celebration was a part of an try and boost nationalism in Spain because the fading colonial power continued its retreat from the hemisphere it had controlled for nearly 4 centuries. Spain also hoped to export the invented holiday to America, strengthening transatlantic cultural affinities that were being tested by the growing influence of the United States. Across America, Día de la Raza became synonymous We have a good time European influence.

In Mexico, the commemoration of 1892 empowered members of the political elite, who promoted European investment and culture as a model for the country's modernization. They took the chance to praise the civilizing influence of the “madre patria”.“or motherland” and justified conquest and colonialism as a time of benevolent rule.

Mestizo nationalism

Just just a few years later, nevertheless, the U.S. victory within the Spanish-American War swept the last remnants of the Spanish empire from the hemisphere. Spain's exit paved the best way for doubles and duel phenomena: rising patriotic spirit in Latin American countries, even within the face of accelerating economic pressure and cultural influence from the United States

The Mexican Revolution of 1910 ignited Mestizo nationalismwhich soon spread to other countries. In Nicaragua within the Nineteen Thirties Augusto Sandino launched a revolution to expel the occupying U.S. Marines while calling for the unification of the “Indo-Hispanic race.” Now a Peruvian mental Jose Mariategui envisioned a contemporary nation built on the ideals of a collective, reciprocal society, modeled on the Inca ayllu system. And in Mexico, beauty pageants The appreciation of local peculiarities was very talked-about amongst social classes who were used to browsing for Parisian imports in department shops.

However, there was still a bent to emphasise Spanish cultural ancestry reasonably than indigenous ones. In the late Nineteen Thirties, for instance, the October issue of the Mexican children's magazine Palomilla celebrated the arrival of Columbus a heroic appearance This gave the region a typical language and religion.

Pan American Day

Meanwhile, the US viewed pan-Hispanic sentiments as a threat: Spanish economic goals were obscured Racial and cultural solidarity.

To strengthen loyalties within the hemisphere, Franklin D. Roosevelt proclaimed a brand new holiday on April 14, 1930: Pan-American Day, or Día de las Américas. The vacation wanted compensated for the stories of each Columbus Day and Día de la Raza and marked that of the US government The focus of the Good Neighborhood Policy is on Latin America – a gentler type of imperialism that, a minimum of on the surface, promoted solidarity and brotherhood.

The Pan-American Union, an inter-American organization based in Washington, saw the brand new date as a chance to forge shared traditions across the hemisphere. It vigorously promoted Pan American Day celebrations, especially amongst school childrenby which teachers are asked to implement games, puzzles, pageants and songs created within the offices of the Pan American Union.

The holiday received an enthusiastic response within the United States. People from the Midwest Hats on for parades, and Spanish-speaking clubs in California held pageants celebrating the flags of American nations.

But Latin American commemoration has been lukewarm at best. The Organization of American States, the successor to the Pan American Union, still recognizes it Pan American Day. However, it never gained traction in Latin America and faded away within the United States during World War II.

Last layer

Latin America's ambivalence toward holidays commemorating colonizers has taken a turn since 1992. The five hundredth anniversary of Columbus' arrival corresponded with this yet one more type of colonialismwithin the eyes of many Latin Americans, as a brand new wave of multinational corporations worked with heads of state to tap the continent's oil, lithium, water and avocados.

Activists used the commemoration to spotlight the continued economic, social, racial and cultural inequalities. The anniversary was particularly inspiring Indigenous rights movements – a few of them commemorated an “anti-quincentenary celebration” to have a good time “500 years of resistance”.

Día de la Raza has since been renamed to reflect anti-colonial sentiments, just like Columbus Day within the United States. Ecuador calls October twelfth Day of Interculturality and Ethnic Identity; Argentina celebrates it as Day of Respect for Cultural Diversity; Nicaragua now refers to it as Day of Indigenous, Black and Popular Resistance; in Colombia it’s Ethnic and Cultural Diversity Day; and the Dominican Republic celebrates it as Intercultural day.

In some places, the renaming of the vacation has drawn attention to indigenous rights and culture. Bolivians, for instance, draped a statue of a European monarch in a standard “Aguayo” robe that transforms her into an indigenous woman. But critics say removing the vacation's reference to the colonizers would erase a vital reminder of the conquest and its painful legacy.

Like within the USA, Monuments to colonizers fall – including the Columbus monument, which stood in a conspicuous place on La Reforma, certainly one of Mexico City's busiest foremost thoroughfares.

In its place is a brand new installation: a purple silhouette of a Girl with raised fistin honor of Latin American women activists. She declares one New era of statues that line La Reforma, and heroes for the long run – not mired within the colonial legacies of the past.