Cultures Day: Costa Rica’s Take on Columbus Day

Happy Día de las Culturas (Cultures Day), Columbus Day, Día de la Raza (Race Day, loosely translated), Indigenous Peoples Day, Day of Indigenous Resistance, Day of the Americas or whatever you may call Oct. 12.

It is, perhaps, the most disputed holiday — by the largest number of nations and people — in the world.

In Costa Rica, where Oct. 12 is officially Cultures Day, banks, government offices, schools and some private businesses will be closed. But few celebrations are planned.

School children were supposed to dress up last Friday in the traditional garb of one of Costa Rica’s many cultures. Some did, some didn’t.

Still, we have made progress from the days, at least in the U.S., where school kids dutifully colored cutouts of the Nina (actually la Niña), Pinta and Santa María and came away thinking that Columbus was an undisputed hero. Among the educational Columbus Day resources suggested by the National Education Association, the teachers labor union, are an essay by the American Indian Movement’s Russell Means and Glenn Morris on why Columbus Day should not be celebrated.

The Associated Press noted that more and more U.S. cities this year are recognizing Oct. 12 as Indigenous Peoples Day along with Columbus Day, thanks to a concerted push by Native American activists.

In Costa Rica, the legislature changed Oct. 12 from Día del Descubrimiento y de la Raza (Day of the Discovery [of the Americas] and Race) to Cultures Day in 1994. When the former was declared a national holiday, in 1968, the legislature said the holiday should commemorate “the spiritual community that links the nations of Latin America, the ties of a single religious faith [Catholic], the same historical and cultural traditions, common biological roots and identical aims of defending Christian civilization….” Ehem.

The 1994 law, on the other hand, says the day should “extol the pluricultural, multiethnic character of the people of Costa Rica.” (The nation’s constitution was changed in August to recognize that pluricultural, multiethnic character.) The law also says the day will commemorate the historic arrival in the Americas of Christopher Columbus. It goes on:

The indigenous, European, African and Asian values that make up the idiosyncrasy of Costa Rica will be exalted in the commemorative acts of Cultures Day. We will remember, on this day, the historical and cultural ties that bind the nations of Latin America. We will also stimulate the recovery of the aforementioned values.

Seems like a good start.