Here in Chicago we celebrate a number of great ethnic holidays as city holidays. Unsurprisingly, there is one such holiday for each of the politically influential ethnic groups in the city.
Martin Luther King’s Birthday is the great African-American holiday. Cinco de Mayo is observed by our Mexican-American population. St. Patrick’s Day is a day of festivity for Chicago’s Irish-Americans. Pulaski Day is celebrated by my Polish neighbors.
And Columbus Day is a great Italian-American holiday.
Ironically, our view of Columbus is less one of the real man or even the Hispanic culture hero celebrated in Latin America as it is the re-invention promulgated by Washington Irving nearly 180 years ago. Irving viewed Columbus as sort of a proto-American. Here’s a snippet from Irving’s introduction:
It is the object of the following work, to relate the deeds and fortunes of the mariner who first had the judgment to divine, and the intrepidity to brave, the mysteries of this perilous deep; and who, by his hardy genius, his inflexible constancy, and his heroic courage, brought the ends of the earth into communication with each other. The narrative of his troubled life is the link which connects the history of the old world with that of the new.
Irving’s biography of Columbus is available online here.
