Today is Columbus Day, a federal holiday that commemorates Christopher Columbus’s arrival to the Americas on Oct. 12, 1492. It is celebrated each year on the second Monday of October.
At least 17 states and the District of Columbia honor Indigenous Peoples Day on the same date, with some replacingColumbus Day altogether.
As of Fall 2025, fewer than 1% of Columbia students identified as Indigenous. Columbia does not celebrate Indigenous peoples with student events, and the college remains open on the federal holiday.
We asked students on Columbia’s campus what they call the holiday, what they know about Columbus, and what meaningful recognition of Indigenous peoples would look like on Columbia’s campus.
Additional reporting by Naomi Ashkenazy, Ry Feiner, Altina Krasniqi, Zachary Cramer, Andrew Willigman and Guadalupe Loza-Sanchez.
This episode was written and edited by Anna Bitz. It was produced by Levi Libson.
TRANSCRIPT:
0:09: Welcome back to Chronicle Chronversations.
0:11: I’m your guest host, Samantha Mosquera.
0:14: Today is Columbus Day, a federal holiday that commemorates Christopher Columbus’ arrival to the Americas on Oct. 12, 1492.
0:21: It is celebrated each year on the second Monday of October.
0:25: At least 17 states and the District of Columbia honor Indigenous Peoples’ Day on the same date, with some replacing Columbus Day altogether.
0:33: As of Fall 2025, fewer than 1% of Columbia students identified as Indigenous.
0:38: Columbia does not celebrate Indigenous peoples with student events, and the college remains open on the federal holiday.
0:45: We asked students on Columbia’s campus what they call the holiday, what they know about Columbus and what meaningful recognition of Indigenous peoples would look like on Columbia’s campus.
0:55: What did you call this holiday today growing up?
0:59: I’m not even sure what holiday it is.
1:01: Today is the 12th, and it is what has largely been celebrated as Columbus Day for many, many years.
1:09: So how did you refer to this holiday growing up?
1:11: I believe I referred to it as Columbus Day.
1:13: Columbus Day.
1:14: We grew up knowing that it was Columbus Day.
1:16: When did you first hear the term Indigenous Peoples’ Day?
1:20: Indigenous Peoples’ Day?
1:23: Honestly, I can’t recall.
1:25: It would be more of a recent thing.
1:28: Growing up, we really never celebrated Indigenous Peoples’ Day.
1:32: To be honest, I haven’t learned about it in a long time, but I remember as a kid that we would talk about colonizing and the land and all of that.
1:42: I wasn’t really in tune with it for the past probably 10 years, to be honest.
1:46: I know his name, but it was never really taught to us why we celebrate this holiday.
1:52: We have to go look it up for ourselves.
1:55: Once I hit fifth grade, that’s when some teachers started being more honest about it, but up until then it was just the same old, same old. And then the Charlie Brown holiday special where the pilgrims and Columbus discovered America.
2:11: What would meaningful recognition of Indigenous people look like at college?
2:15: I think just awareness is like the first step to recognizing people’s different cultures and then celebrating that as a whole and not just only having a certain group celebrate it, but incorporate the entire college into celebrating something like that.
2:35: I think it should be a celebrated day like any other day, like Presidents’ Day or MLK Day, where everybody does have off and we can acknowledge and celebrate the people who truly lived here and truly had and discovered America.
2:52: I’m Samantha Mosquera.
2:53: Thanks for listening.
Copy edited by Venus Tapang
