Indigenous Peoples’ Day Explained: About the Holiday

In October in the United States, Indigenous Peoples’ Day celebrates the achievements and cultures of Indigenous tribes throughout all of the contiguous US as well as Hawaii and Alaska. Native activists lobbied for this celebratory occasion to supplant Columbus Day, which honors Christopher Columbus and his problematic legacy.

In 1977, the United Nations began to work with Indigenous populations in the Western Hemisphere about replacing Columbus Day with a holiday celebrating Native tribes instead. Some Italian Americans resisted this change given their attachment to Columbus as an Italian himself. Protests and counter protests in cities like Berkeley, San Francisco, and New York City were common for many years.

It wasn’t until more than a decade later that states began to heed the words of American Indian people. South Dakota became one of the first to celebrate Indigenous Peoples' Day in 1989, although the state calls the holiday Native American Day. In the 2010s, Iowa, Louisiana, Michigan, Vermont, and Wisconsin officially recognized the holiday.

In the 2020s, Oregon and Virginia joined the ranks as well before President Joe Biden declared Indigenous Peoples' Day a federal holiday in 2021. This made it a de facto day of celebration in all remaining states in the country, as well as in Washington, DC.

Indigenous communities welcome celebrating their own histories rather than Columbus Day, which tells history from a Eurocentric perspective. Still, it doesn’t redress all the injustices Native tribes have and continue to face throughout North American history. While the holiday helps shifts the focus of whom the country celebrates, it doesn’t resolve the issues these groups experience today.

You can support Indigenous communities in several ways. You can:

• Donate to Indigenous causes. Seek Native causes you can donate to and champion on your social media accounts. Find ways to reach out to nearby Indigenous communities to see if you can help in a more tangible sense as well. You may be able to volunteer in a way suited to your unique abilities and personality.
• Engage in activism. There’s always more to be done when it comes to fighting for human rights. Indigenous people still face a wide variety of injustices to this day. Speak to your city council and state representatives to see what they’re doing to make life better for Native tribes.
• Listen to Indigenous voices. For so much of the United States’s history, colonizing forces demanded assimilation from Native peoples. Indigenous communities found themselves hewing to the norms of a society imposed on them rather than celebrating their own history and culture. Now, you have the opportunity to do your part and listen to Indigenous voices while amplifying the cultures of Native peoples.

Celebrating Indigenous Peoples’ Day can be very enjoyable no matter what your own heritage or culture. Here are just a few tips to consider:

• Be respectful. Cultural celebration is different from cultural appropriation. For instance, if you are not Indigenous, refrain from celebrating the holiday by adopting Native dress. There’s an important distinction between amplifying a culture and acting as if it’s your own. Other people’s cultures are not costumes.
• Celebrate and learn about Indigenous culture. Listen to the music of Native peoples. Consider purchasing pieces from contemporary Indigenous artists. Read about the fraught and cruel history of colonialism, as well as the unique and inspiring stories of Native tribes. Consider learning how to converse in an Indigenous language. For instance, some variant of Algonquian was common from as far north as present-day Minnesota and Maine to as far south as North Carolina and Virginia.
• Cook Indigenous recipes. Try your hand at cooking an Indigenous recipe. You could further hone your search by looking for recipes specific to a tribe near your own region of the land. For example, if you live in a Southwestern state like New Mexico, maybe try an Apache dish. If you’re a New York resident, perhaps an Iroquois dish would be more fitting.

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