Columbus Day, a symbol of passion and courage

If there’s a festivity that connects Italians to Americans, that’s Columbus Day.

 

Much more than a historical anniversary (many in fact the imprecisions that characterize it), October 12, 1492 is a date that represents the starting point of a new historical phase that is still being written.

 

A history though, that has always been controversial, that has seen the success of some and the end of others: the adventure of the Genoese Christopher Columbus led in fact to the birth of a new society, and to the repression of the native one.

 

But that was another era, and different was the approach to what was new and different.

We have to observe with critical eyes then, but without denying the contribution that Columbus has given to history, from a scientific, political and social point of view.

 

Again, if the Italian community in the US has been since then so large and active, it is also thanks to the courage and ability of that group of explorers, who traveled the ocean to prove the existence of something that no one was yet ready to accept.

 

Like every year, even this last week, the Federated of Southern California paid homage to the voyage of Columbus, with a symbolic ceremony that gathered together all those who wanted to commemorate his arrival to the new continent, without forgetting that the same land, still today, keeps welcoming thousand of Italians, looking, them too, for something new.