Columbus Day Goes Global: How the Rest of the World Politely Ignores (or Rage-Deletes) an American Holiday
From the banks of the Tagus to the neon canyons of Tokyo, the second Monday in October has become an annual Rorschach test: some see parades, others see plunder. While U.S. federal employees enjoy a paid holiday to commemorate a Genoese sailor who never set foot on what would later be branded “America,” the rest of the planet responds with a collective shrug—or, increasingly, a raised eyebrow.
In Spain, where King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella originally bankrolled Cristoforo Colombo’s 1492 Airbnb experience, the day passes with the quiet dignity of a family pretending not to notice grandpa’s racist jokes. A handful of naval history buffs toast the Admiral in Seville tapas bars, but the Spanish media mostly ignore the date, preferring to obsess over Catalan separatists and the price of jamón ibérico. Meanwhile, across the Pyrenees, France has adopted the American holiday with the same enthusiasm it reserves for deep-fried Twinkies: polite curiosity followed by existential nausea.
Latin America, of course, does not celebrate Columbus Day; it endures it. South of the Rio Grande, October 12 is Día de la Raza—a bureaucratic euphemism that roughly translates to “Let’s all agree genocide is complicated.” In Mexico City, activists douse statues of the explorer in blood-red paint, an artistic choice that doubles as handy rust prevention. In Caracas, the late Hugo Chávez rechristened the holiday “Day of Indigenous Resistance,” presumably because “We Told You So” wouldn’t fit on the commemorative stamps.
Canada, never one to miss a chance for polite one-upmanship, celebrates Thanksgiving on the same day, thereby ensuring that its citizens can binge pumpkin pie while politely ignoring their southern neighbors’ historical cosplay. Indigenous leaders above the 49th parallel note the coincidence with the wry amusement of tenants who discovered the landlord is also throwing a housewarming party in the living room he just seized.
Further east, the date barely registers. Beijing’s state-run outlets mention Columbus only when illustrating the perils of Western maritime hubris, usually beside graphics of U.S. aircraft carriers. In New Delhi, analysts cite 1492 as the moment Europe pivoted westward, thereby sparing India centuries of additional colonial attention—small mercies wrapped in sarcasm. Meanwhile, in Lagos, young entrepreneurs joke that if Columbus had just kept sailing, Silicon Valley might today be under a Yoruba-speaking HOA.
The European Union, ever allergic to uncomfortable anniversaries, has begun quietly relabeling the day “European Explorers Week” in school curricula, a linguistic maneuver that combines bureaucratic hedging with the marketing savvy of a rebrand for toxic toothpaste. German textbooks now describe Columbus as a “complex figure,” which is EU-speak for “we’d rather not discuss the body count.”
Even Italy, Columbus’s birthplace, has developed ambivalence. Genoa still markets “Cristoforo Colombo” gelato—pistachio, chocolate, and strawberry arranged like the Spanish flag—but local sales have plateaued as young Italians emigrate to places their ancestor once “discovered” for someone else. The city’s souvenir shops now sell T-shirts that read “My Ancestor Went to the Caribbean and All I Got Was This Lousy Genocide.” Capitalism, ever the opportunist, adapts.
What unites these disparate reactions is a shared understanding that history is less a fixed narrative than an ongoing negotiation—and Columbus Day is the awkward conference call where no one remembers who muted whom. The holiday has become a global parlor game: How many euphemisms can humanity invent before someone finally admits the house was already occupied?
As the sun sets on yet another October Monday, from the pampas to the Arctic Circle, the world’s 8 billion temporary stewards of the planet raise whatever glass they can afford—be it grappa, tequila, or lukewarm tap water—and toast the enduring lesson of 1492: that every voyage of discovery eventually circles back to the same inconvenient truth—someone else was already there, and they have receipts.
