Convos with Pro-Colombos: Insight #3 Since Colombo is a Symbol, We Don’t Need to Agree on History.
What This Contro-Colombo Learned by Listening to Instead of Fighting with Pro-Colombo Italians.
About This Series
Coming out of 2020, what struck me was the deep need to try to build understanding and bridges among people who are on differing sides of the culture war because if we’re not sincerely trying to understand why people on the other side aren’t budging and seeing how we can resolve issues amongst ourselves, I worry that we might wind up in serious long-term trouble here in the States.
This is part 3of a 3-part series. In this part, we take a look at changes in the Italian-American community as we try to protect and pass down our culture for future generations. In their time, our immigrant ancestors needed a symbol and it was Colombus.
Our times and our needs are different though. The symbol we need is our immigrant ancestors.
This is a good faith conversation. Any nastiness in feedback including hate speech or cancel culture puritanism is just going to get you blocked.
The original video is available at https://youtu.be/mAC1YvuPDlc
Transcript
Hi, my name is Rebecca Ginamarie, pronouns she/her. I am a Contro- Columbo, Sicilian-Italian-American, and this is the third insight I learned by listening instead of getting into push-and-shove arguments with Pro-Columbo Italians.
In this photo is one of our Italian-American immigrant ancestors, Camilla Teoli, and I got into her story in the last video if you want to check it out. It’s all around Italian ancestors. For Insights 1 and 2, the prior video should just be in the last two posts or inside of a playlist series called “Convos with Pro-Columbos.”
Keep in mind this is a good faith conversation. Any nastiness, hate speech, cancel culture puritanism, any other kind of stuff like that, it’s just going to get you blocked
Insight #1 was: Yes, Pro-Colombos, you’re right. Columbus is a symbol. Insight #2 is that our symbol is our ancestors.
And #3 — and I think this is very good news for anyone on any side of the Columbus disagreement — I don’t think we actually need to agree on the history of Columbus because, like you Pro-Columbos have said, he’s a symbol.
Let me explain my thinking. The way that I see our heritage day — and I think a lot of us Italians regardless of political position do — is that this is a day where everyone in the country gets to spend time as a guest at the Italian table. They get to spend the day in the soul of our culture, and we’re the hosts, right?
What do we want in these celebrations? What do we do? What’s our tradition? We invite our loved ones, our neighbors, our communities. We want newcomers to come in, we want old friends at the table, and what we do when we celebrate is that everyone is well-fed, welcomed, and so well-loved they leave that table feeling like family.
Everyone in the Italian-American community can agree that is the Soul of the Culture right there. Our heritage day should be like that, where all the communities, all the neighbors in this country come to sit at our table, celebrate with us, and feel loved by the best of Italian culture.
What we need to realize is that Indigenous people are one of the guests at our table. They should feel loved there. They should feel welcomed. They should feel just as well-fed as everybody else.
But like you said, Columbus is a symbol.
It’s not just for us. It’s also a symbol for Indigenous people.
Whatever you think of the history is whatever you think of the history, but we all agree — Pro-Columbo, Contro-Colombo, Indigenous people — Columbus is a cultural symbol.
For you Pro-Columbos, it’s not historical. It’s a symbol of our immigrant ancestors that they put in place and we’re enjoying the benefits of them doing that. That’s your view from your side of Italian culture.
But what’s the view of this symbol from our Indigenous neighbors? Columbus is also a symbol for them, and what do they tell us about what that symbol culturally means for them? Pain. Trauma. Terror. Sorrow.
You may not agree with them on historical facts, and I’m not here to convince you of historical facts. But we have no reason not to believe them when they say what it means culturally, symbolically for them … because we all agree Columbus is a symbol.
And the thing is, if we believe in Democracy, if we remember it is the most precious and basic reason our ancestors ran here …
in order to practice that Democracy, to be good Americans, our symbol has got to work for all of our guests, and right now, it’s not doing that. That’s what we need to realize — not shame you, not yell at you — just that’s the thing to realize.
Indigenous people don’t feel safe at the Italian table
Paesan*s, imagine that you get invited to celebrate Southern culture. I live South now and I love it. You’re invited over for a celebration. You’re eating catfish and all this other food I’m still learning the name of. And you’re having a good time and then you look around and you realize that there are statues and images commemorating the people who lynched the Sicilian 11.
Maybe you bring this up, and you say to them: “You know ,what is this?” And they say to you: “What? It’s not about lynching or the history. It’s not about history. It’s not about your people, your culture. We’re just here. This is our thing, this is how we’ve been doing it. This is just Southern culture to us. It’s not a big deal.”
And then they walk away from it like it’s no problem. That would make it maybe just a little hard to really feel Southern hospitality, wouldn’t it? To feel the soul of that culture? Would we really feel like they were being good guests — or excuse me … would we feel like they were being good hosts?
If the soul of our culture is that in our celebrations our guests are well-fed, well-taken care of and so well-loved that they leave that table feeling like a part of the family,
How can we do that for our guests who are being reminded of pain and terror that they and their ancestors have gone through?
At this point in time — not in the previous times of our ancestors — just today talking about today. With Columbus as a symbol, we can’t be good hosts. If we can’t be good hosts, then we can’t actually express and share the very best of our culture, which means we can’t actually be in the Soul of our Culture.
If you decide to celebrate Columbus — which that choice is yours — but if you do it — can you keep the Italian Soul?
I don’t think so. Because if we keep Columbus in this day and age, where we are now, we’ve got to blow off an entire neighboring community. And do it over the fact that they feel pain.
That is not democratic.
That is not Italian generosity, that’s not Italian warmth. That’s not our welcoming-ness, that’s not our good-heartedness. So the decision to make is: Which is more important to you? Columbus or the Soul of our Culture? That’s the decision you’re making today.
Columbus or the Soul?
For me, the solution is very simple we give the 12th of October to Indigenous Peoples’ Day, and we build an updated Italian Heritage Day that continues the legacy of our immigrant ancestors. That simple. It gives Indigenous people some of the recognition they deserve, and it moves our symbol to something that is both democratic and meets the needs of our modern Italian-American community today.
Bonus: it does it in a way that de-escalates the culture war instead of fueling it.
On the Italian side, outside of this issue, we have so many good choices for a great update now. We could use someone like Camilla, we could nationalize something like San Gennarro. There’s loads of ideas. We come up with those so that we can be good hosts for the entire American village. So that we can express the Soul, the very best of our Italian culture. And so that our symbol really really represents our immigrant ancestors.
Our nonni (grandparents) and bisnonni (great-grandparents), they needed to figure out a hero back then. Today is different. Our hero is them.
Let them be up front. Let them carry the Soul of our Culture for us. We all know they worked hard enough to be that for us.
That’s it, everyone. Mille Grazie (1000 thanks) for listening. I look forward to hearing your good faith thoughts in the comments. Take care of yourselves.
-end transcript
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The original video is available at https://youtu.be/mAC1YvuPDlc
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