As a student, here's what I want to know to best recognize Columbus Day
Today is Columbus Day, and of course I am aware that it is a no-school day, which I am very excited about!
Being a senior in high school, people might assume I know a lot about Christopher Columbus, but most of my knowledge centers on the voyage this explorer made trying to find a better way of reaching Asia by sailing west from Europe. He executed the voyage with his three boats, the Niña, the Pinta and Santa Maria. Additionally, he had Spain's support on the daring trip.
Correspondingly, to best recognize Columbus Day, I would need to know his origins, the true purpose of his trips and his true identity. I would also need to have information on his true impact on the Americas.
Columbus Day is seen as a way to celebrate Italian American heritage and to honor Columbus' achievements. Italians feel special knowing that someone with the same origin changed the world drastically. You cannot deny that his exploration led to the expansion of our understanding of geography and culture.
The Columbian Exchange had a significant impact on the world. It transferred people and animals across cultures and continents, along with a long list of crops and food - including bringing wheat, sugar cane, and coffee to the New World and tomatoes, potatoes, and corn to Europe.
Indeed, Columbus started off centuries of exploration and expansion in the American continents.
People say we should celebrate him based on his positive effect on the Americas.
On the other hand, people argue we should not celebrate Columbus Day based on his treatment of Indigenous people. His arrival introduced diseases to the Americas that decimated native populations who had no immunity to them.
He believed that Indigenous people needed to be enslaved. He wrote in his diary: "They would make fine servants ... With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want."
He would cut native people's hands off if they did not find enough gold, and he executed rebellious Spanish colonists. He was a cruel and egocentric man. While the reason for his journeys was to find an easier route to Asia, the true motivator was wealth, fame, and fortune.
The Spanish monarchs who funded his trips had the same goal, in addition to the spreading of Catholicism. The contract between Columbus and King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain stated that he would receive 10 percent of the riches and governorship of any lands he would encounter. Accordingly, we need to realize that his ideas were very selfish.
On one side, you have Italian Americans celebrating someone they view as a hero and his accomplishments. On the other side, people argue we should remove this holiday and bring down monuments of Columbus based on his actions that led to so many deaths from disease and murder.
It's also important to note that Columbus was not the first person to propose that a person could reach Asia by sailing west from Europe, and he was not the first European to visit the "New World." Students should learn that in school, and information that indicates he was the "first" should be cleared up in classrooms.
Columbus kicked off centuries of exploration and "discoveries," but we cannot forget the terrible impact of his actions on native populations. All of Columbus' history needs to be considered and discussed when people decide if he should be labeled as a hero or villain.
We should recognize him for changing the New World but we should not celebrate a criminal. In the end, we all acknowledge that the world would not be the same without his daring trips.
• Miriam Salvador, of Hanover Park, is a senior at Bartlett High School. She plans to attend Northern Illinois University and major in business.