You can't have a future without a past

It's been 529 years since Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue. That's 529 years of wars, famines and pandemics; 529 years of invention, discovery and creativity; 529 years of countless historic accounts, stretched truths and promulgated recollections.

It seems a bit amazing to me that after all that time, it has been just over the past 18 months or so that perceived truths about Christopher Columbus have become undisputed facts for those who believe in tearing down monuments and rewriting history.

Columbus Day for us Italian Americans is a sacred day of celebration and has been for 130 years. Few, if any, monuments dedicated to the great explorer were actually erected to honor his accomplishments. Those statues were set in place to recognize the contributions made by Italians to the development of this wonderful country.

"Why don't you just change it to Italian Heritage Day?" Or, "Why don't you just name it after someone less controversial like Mother Cabrini or Enrico Fermi?" These are common questions I get during interviews and from friends of other cultures.

I respond with a question. What ethnic group would allow other entities to dictate who their heroes or icons should be? And what happens when in a couple of years, when a group of individuals decide they don't like the great scientist Enrico Fermi, we should just change that again?

We concur that narratives need to be broadened, and dialogue must ensue. More of the stories about all of our histories need to be told. And amends must be made. We want to learn the good, bad and ugly truths about our American history. But what cannot be done is to replace what is perceived to be a one-sided narrative with another one-sided narrative. We should add facts and accounts, not subtract them.

But that is not what is happening. Curriculum is just being pulled, history books are being rewritten and stories are being given altered endings. Is that how we are to learn from history? Is that how we will teach our youth about dealing with difficult subjects?

You know what hasn't been done? Members of the intellectual community on both sides of the table have not come together to work on narratives that address everyone's issues. How can we come to a resolve if all parties don't philosophically lock themselves in a room together only to emerge when a mutually agreeable narrative is constructed?

As much as Columbus Day is a federal holiday Italian Americans call their own, we wholeheartedly believe it is a day to be shared by all ethnic groups. We dream of the day when we can march arm-in-arm with our Indigenous brothers and sisters. Not to oversimplify the issue, but Columbus opened the door of exploration and brought Christianity to the New World.

The tragedy of slavery, oppression and colonization was around 4,000 years before Columbus was even born. Was he, or his comrades involved in any of that? History tells us yes. But that was 529 years ago. The question should not be, "How do we erase that?" It really should be, "How do we learn from it?"

There are authors and scholars with conflicting versions of what happened back then. There are books that say Columbus was a hero, other publications make him a villain. Who is to say what is fact and what is fiction?

What people must understand is that Christopher Columbus represents generations of traditions to Italian Americans, and those traditions must be respected the same way any other ethnic group would want to be respected. But we are also willing to discuss it. We want to talk about it. We want all stories told.

There isn't just one ethnic group that holds title to bigotry, racism and oppression. We, and those who came before us, have all faced the ugliness of those things, still believing that America is the best country in the world, despite them. But we all must face our truths and respect each other while doing so.

When a journalist friend of mine said in her daily column that she was going to be off for Indigenous People's Day on Monday, I asked her, "What about Columbus Day?"

She replied, "It's a new world, Ron. And I ask my Italian American friends to get over it!"

I responded to her by saying that I look forward to the day when she says in her column, "Hey, African Americans, get over it. ... Hey, Indigenous Americans, get over it. ... Hey, Latin Americans, get over it. ... Hey, Jewish Americans, get over that Holocaust thing."

I will not "get over it." This is something important to us. And I won't get over the hatred, the crime and the insensitivity. So let's not just extend olive branches to each other, but let us extend the entire olive tree!

Enough with the fighting and the hate. We gotta talk! Let's come to the table and give our children a future. Because the way things are going, they won't have a history.

• Ron Onesti is president of the Joint Civic Committee of Italian Americans, Chicago.