(OCTOBER 9, 2020) Monday, October 12, 2020 is a holiday. The national government calls it Columbus Day. Columbus was an Italian explorer. He visited the Americas first in 1492 for Spain.
However, many people do not want to honor Columbus. They believe that he represents the harmful colonization of the Americas. They think a holiday for Columbus covers up the problems that he and many others created for the people already living in this part of the world.
Therefore many states and local governments have changed the holiday. Some call it Native American day. In Oregon, the day is now Indigenous Peoples Day. It honors the native people who have lived in the Americas for centuries.
The new holiday acknowledges that modern Oregon is built upon the ancestral homelands of the indigenous people and tribes of this region who have lived here for years. The Portland area, for example, rests on the traditional village sites of the Multnomah, Kathlamet, Clackamas, bands of the Chinook, Tualatin Kalapuya, Molalla and many other tribes who made their homes along the Columbia River.