The city of Portsmouth will no longer recognize Columbus Day as a city holiday. The city council voted 8-1 last week to replace it with Indigenous Peoples’ Day.
Leading the multi-year effort behind this change is a student social justice club at Portsmouth High School called WE Speak. Freshman Olivia Annunziata Blaisdell is one of the lead organizers for the club, and she spoke with All Things Considered host Julia Furukawa. Below is a transcript of their conversation.
Transcript
Julia Furukawa: So, Olivia, how are you feeling about the council's decision to finally recognize Indigenous Peoples’ Day instead of Columbus Day?
Olivia Annunziata Blaisdell: I am so glad that we were able to finally push this through. A couple members of WE Speak from two years ago were working on this a lot. I was really happy to pick up those efforts and really push it all the way through this time. I'm so glad we were able to do that for Portsmouth.
Julia Furukawa: So why is it important to recognize this holiday as Indigenous People’s Day and not Columbus Day?
Olivia Annunziata Blaisdell: So Columbus Day has been celebrated for a long time. It was when Italian-Americans were first immigrating to America, and it was important for them to feel like they had a connection to the lands that they were moving to. And so Columbus was the person they decided to celebrate. But with what we know now, reading Columbus’s journals and recollections of people he was with, we have come to understanding that he started a true genocide of the people that were already here. Instead of recognizing somebody who caused so much harm to the Native people that were here, that cared for this land that we're lucky enough to now live on, I think we should pay our respects and our honor to those people who were here before us and who cultivated this land for us to be able to to still be here and be living on it.
Julia Furukawa: So what's next for WE Speak? What are your goals heading into the next school year?
Olivia Annunziata Blaisdell: We're hoping that the city and school board will start to make more concrete, intentional actions on this issue. For example, just having a land acknowledgment before every meeting or public recognitions of the land,. Tthings like that. Something that shows that we are actually taking steps in order to recognize the Native people instead of just saying it and not really doing anything. I think another thing we would really love to happen is have the Indigenous people brought into the Portsmouth 400, which is coming up, because although that does mark the 400 years of Portsmouth being sort of what it is now, I think we have to remember that there were people here before us. And I think that's something that really needs to be brought up and brought to light.
Julia Furukawa: You're a freshman in high school. I'm wondering why you think it's important to make sure young voices are included in local politics?
Olivia Annunziata Blaisdell: I think it's important because the young people are the next generation. Because I think a lot of young people—either my age, younger, slightly older—don't understand that just because, you know, we're not the mayor or the president, we can still do something. Everybody counts. Everybody's voice should count. And they can make a change if they should want to.
