While schools and federal workers in Massachusetts have Monday off for Columbus Day, Tufts University students used the long weekend to celebrate Indigenous Peoples’ Day.
The Indigenous Students Organization at Tufts University (ISOT) hosted an Indigenous Peoples’ Day celebration on the residential quad of the school on Sunday afternoon. The program included indigenous music, dance, and speakers, as well as catered food from Indigenous-owned Massachusetts businesses.
Venessa John, a junior Tufts student and part of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, organized the event with three other students with Indigenous backgrounds.
“By showing up you are actively supporting the first peoples of this land in a tangible way,” John said in ISOT’s opening remarks.
This year, the event highlighted global mutual aid efforts. The 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 leading to the organizer’s personal Venmo account.
“While we celebrate today, we also remember the lives lost throughout the violent settler regime of the U.S. empire, as well as the lives lost daily among our Indigenous siblings in Palestine, Lebanon, and all other victims of colonialism and imperialism,” John said.
The opening remarks ended with a land acknowledgment to commemorate the land of the Naumkeag, Pawtucket, and Massachusett tribal nations that Tufts University was built on.
The name for the state Massachusetts derives from the Indigenous word “Massa-adchu-es-et”, which means “great-hill-small-place.” The word refers to the blue hills just south of Boston in Milton, Massachusetts which are now a reservation.
Tufts administration officially changed Oct. 14 from Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples’ Day in 2016 after a student movement advocated for the switch.
Federally, the second Monday of October is still recognized as the holiday called “Columbus Day,” which was made a federal holiday by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1937. In 2021, President Joe Biden issued an official proclamation commemorating Indigenous Peoples’ Day, becoming the first president to do so.
Last October, a Pew Research Center report found that only 16 states celebrate “Columbus Day” as an official public holiday. Massachusetts is one of those states.
Many residents believe the holiday should be renamed to highlight the historic plight of Native Americans. Student organizers too question the celebration of Columbus’s legacy.
“There’s so many examples of colonialism in our daily lives,” said Sam Jonas, one of the student organizers with ISOT. “There’s Columbus Ave. There’s all these buildings named after slave owners, these symbols are everywhere. Recognition from the settler state doesn’t do much. It’s the bare minimum.”
For John, changing the name of the day is not enough: “What we want is land back and what we want is native communities to be thriving,” she said.
Over 20 vendors were set up in a circle around the event selling handmade products, including jewelry, clothes, essential oils, and artwork.
Keiko Moreno, 66, designs and sells traditional ribbon clothes. Moreno said she should be home with her family, but added, “It’s important to me to connect with my people. It keeps me alive.”
Moreno has connections to the Nottoway and Rappahannock tribes of Virginia and is Cape Verdean. For her, Indigenous Peoples’ Day is an opportunity to celebrate her cultural background.
“I feel like we get overlooked every other day in society,” she said.
Aside from selling goods at events, Moreno works as a middle school substitute teacher which she sees as an opportunity to share her culture with a younger generation. Moreno said she wants people globally to “embrace everybody’s culture.”
Nelson Salazar sold handmade stained glass lanterns and decorations at the event. He graduated from Tufts with a master’s in urban studies in 2008.
“I think an indigenous day is a way for us to remember that we were not discovered. When Europeans came here we were already here. Saying that they discovered America is a fallacy,” he said.
He moved to the United States from El Salvador and has lived in Somerville for over 45 years.
“[Indigenous Peoples’ Day] is for us to remember who we are and that Medford and Somerville are part of our lands,” he said.
