On the month of October, we will look into Columbus Day, Native Americans, and Halloween! It’s going to be a Fiesta!

Columbus Day is one if not, the most controversial holiday in our American calendar. We cannot ignore that when Columbus landed in the Bahamas, he brought ideas, sickness, and people that enslaved and oppressed millions of Native Americans for hundreds of years.

There have been movements to completely remove it, change the name to Native American’s Day and others, but we also need to recognize that from that day on, there was a fusion of cultures and, today, the American continent is populated by “Mestizo” people of all races, like me! “The Columbus Exchange” connected Asia, America, Europe, Africa, and Middle East, for over 200 years. So, the mestizo are not only a marriage between Spaniards and Native Americans, but a marriage of people from all over the world.

I am mestizo too. For me it means I can celebrate the cultures of all my grandparents, and with that comes the food, the music, the sayings, and all the idiosyncrasies they had, like superstitions.

If I could vote, I would call Columbus Day, “America’s Heritage Day”, and celebrate everybody’s heritage, including mine. How would you call it?