Community members honor Indigenous Peoples Day by celebrating traditions, unity and resistance

While schools and government workers in Massachusetts were closed Monday for Columbus Day, students at Tufts University used the long weekend to celebrate Native American Day.

Tufts University’s Indigenous Student Organization (ISOT) hosted an Indigenous People’s Day celebration in the school’s residence hall on Sunday afternoon. The program included Native music, dance and speakers, as well as catered food from Native Massachusetts businesses.

Venessa John, a junior Tufts student and part of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, organized the event with three other students with Indian heritage.

“By showing up you are actively supporting the first people of this country,” John said in ISOT’s opening remarks.

This year, the event highlighted efforts to help each other around the world. Organizers encouraged attendees to donate to Palestine, Sudan, Congo, Lebanon, West Papua, Haiti and Kashmir. They hung posters around the event with a QR code that led to the organizer’s Venmo account.

“As we celebrate today, we also remember the lives lost throughout the US government’s brutal colonial rule, as well as the lives lost every day among our Indian brothers and sisters in Palestine. , Lebanon, and all other victims of colonialism and imperialism,” John said. .

The opening remarks ended with a land acknowledgment commemorating the land of the Naumkeag, Pawtucket, and Massachusett tribal communities on which Tufts University was built.

The the name for the state of Massachusetts comes from the native word “Massa-adchu-es-et”, which means “big place of the little hill.” The term refers to the blue hills south of Boston Milton, Massachusetts which is now a residential area.

The Tufts administration officially changed October 14 from Columbus Day to Native Americans’ Day in 2016 after student movement flip the switch.

Generally, the second Monday in October is still recognized as a holiday called “Columbus Day,” which was made a national holiday by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1937. In 2021, President Joe Biden give an officer. announcement commemorating Indigenous Peoples Day, becoming the first president to do so.

Last October, the Pew Research Center report found that only 16 countries celebrate “Columbus Day” as a public holiday. Massachusetts is one of those states.

Many citizens they believe the holiday should be renamed to highlight the historical suffering of Native Americans. Student organizers also question the celebration of Columbus’ legacy.

“There are too many examples of colonialism in our daily lives,” said Sam Jonas, one of the student organizers of ISOT. “There is Columbus Ave. There are all these buildings named after slave owners, these symbols are everywhere. Acceptance from a foreign country does nothing. It’s the bare minimum. ”

For John, changing the name of the day is not enough: “What we want is to go back and what we want is for the indigenous population to succeed,” he said.

More than 20 vendors were set up in a circle around the event selling handmade products, including jewelry, clothing, essential oils and works of art.

Keiko Moreno, 66, designs and sells traditional ribbon clothing. Moreno said he should be at home with his family, but added, “It’s important for me to connect with my people. It keeps me alive.”

Moreno has ties to the Nottoway and Rappahannock tribes of Virginia and is Cape Verdean. For him, Indigenous People’s Day is an opportunity to celebrate his cultural background.

He said: “I feel like we have no one every day in the community.

In addition to selling merchandise at events, Moreno works as a substitute teacher at a middle school which he sees as an opportunity to share his culture with the younger generation. Moreno said he wants people around the world to “accept everyone’s culture.”

Nelson Salazar sold handmade glass lamps and ornaments at the event. He graduated from Tufts with a master’s in urban studies in 2008.

“I think the day of the natives is a way for us to remember that we were not discovered. When the whites arrived here we were already there. To say that they discovered America is a lie,” he said.

He immigrated to the United States from El Salvador and has lived in Somerville for over 45 years.

“[Indigenous Peoples’ Day] it is for us to remember who we are and that Medford and Somerville are part of our land,” he said.