The real reason America is still celebrating Columbus Day

美國仍然慶祝哥倫布日的真正原因

It is quite an accomplishment that many people in the United States and South America still manage to remember a man who was lost at sea thinking he found a route to Asia and died not knowing he arrived at a different continent. If you think about it, Columbus Day isn’t really about celebrating Christopher Columbus; it’s about celebrating what he represents in terms of power and domination of a European empire — economics, politics, society — over a population across the ocean.

在美國和南美洲，許多人仍然記得一個迷失在海上的人，他以為自己發現了通往亞洲的航線，卻不知道自己到達了一個不同的大陸而死去。如果你仔細思考一下，哥倫布日並不是在慶祝克里斯托弗·哥倫布本人，而是在慶祝他所代表的歐洲帝國對跨海洋人口的經濟、政治和社會的權力和統治。

Why not forget about Columbus once and for all? In France, they do not celebrate the Mexican-French war. Why would the French celebrate the fall of the French Empire? It seems like the recognition of Columbus Day is a desperate need for Americans to feel European. It’s interesting how the lives of an entire population changed for centuries just because one Italian explorer thought himself to be in South Asia.

為什麼不徹底忘記哥倫布呢？在法國，他們不慶祝墨西哥-法國戰爭。為什麼法國人要慶祝法蘭西帝國的倒臺呢？看起來哥倫布日的認可對美國人來說是一種迫切需要，以感受歐洲的氛圍。有趣的是，一個義大利探險家自認為到達了南亞，整個人群的生活因此改變了幾個世紀。

Latin American history is not as simple as Columbus Day makes it seem. It is much more complicated — you can’t equate the history of the Bahamas to that of Guatemala, Guyana or Uruguay. You cannot compare Buenos Aires with Lima or Caracas. America is much greater, braver and enlightened than one simple Oct. 12, because it had greater glories way before 1492 and built exquisite monuments and cities like the Egyptians and the Chinese did.

拉丁美洲的歷史並不像哥倫布日所展示的那樣簡單。它要複雜得多——你不能把巴哈馬的歷史等同於瓜地馬拉、蓋亞那或烏拉圭的歷史。你不能把布宜諾斯艾利斯與利馬或加拉加斯相比較。美洲比一個簡單的10月12日更偉大、更勇敢、更開明，因為在1492年之前，它就有了更偉大的輝煌，並建造了像埃及和中國一樣精美的紀念碑和城市。

Columbus Day has become a political pawn positioned in American countries today to denigrate Indigenous people and to remind them that they are inferior to anything signifying European civilization. The discourse of inferiority began when Native people became “Indians” or “Indigenous.” The word “Indian” did not exist in the Americas until Columbus arrived. It is not only about the use of the word that is at stake here, but also what it signifies and the damage it has caused.

哥倫布日如今已成為美國國家中的政治棋子，用來貶低土著人民，並提醒他們自己是低人一等，不如任何代表歐洲文明的事物。這種低人一等的論調始於土著人民被稱為“印第安人”或“土著人”。在哥倫布到來之前，美洲並不存在“印第安人”這個詞。這裡所涉及的不僅僅是詞語的使用，還有它所代表的意義以及造成的傷害。

In Mexico, for instance, it can be used to denigrate Indigenous people and in turn, end up proving that Spanish imperialism remains in the everyday politics and culture of the people who inhabit the Americas. Of course, it is much more complicated than that. But this raises the question: Are Native nations and people in the contemporary American continent “Indian?”

例如，在墨西哥，它可以用來貶低土著人，並進一步證明西班牙帝國主義仍然存在於居住在美洲的人們的日常政治和文化中。當然，事情比這複雜得多。但這引出了一個問題：在當代美洲大陸，土著民族和人民是否被稱為“印第安人”？

Take it from a Mixtec nobleman who asked a Spanish conqueror the name of his king and the Spaniard said: “Don Felipe de Austria.” The Mixtec nobleman replied: “Then, that is the name I will take for myself.” Mixtec noblemen and noblewomen in colonial Oaxaca refused to be inferior to the Spanish and claimed their dynasties through marriage allegiances well into the independence of Mexico. They refused to be the “Indians” Columbus claimed to have discovered. They spoke Mixtec and Spanish fluently alongside Latin, dressed in Spanish fashions, constructed palaces and kept Mixtec hieroglyphs as proof of their nobility. But people do not teach that in school today.

聽一個米斯特克貴族的故事，他問一個西班牙征服者他國王的名字，西班牙人回答：“費利佩·德·奧地利。”米斯特克貴族回答：“那麼，那就是我要用的名字。”在墨西哥獨立時期，殖民時期的瓦哈卡的米斯特克貴族和貴族女性拒絕低人一等於西班牙人，並透過婚姻聯姻來宣稱他們的王朝。他們拒絕成為哥倫布所宣稱的“印第安人”。他們能流利地說米斯特克語和西班牙語，還會說拉丁語，穿著西班牙時尚，建造宮殿，並保留米斯特克象形文字作為他們貴族身份的證明。但今天學校裡並沒有教授這些內容。

Celebrating Columbus Day takes us a few decades back and not forward into the future. I dare to say that most of modern Latin America in the 21st century is over Columbus. I once jokingly asked an Ecuadorean man why Latin America has corrupt governments and he replied: “Corruption came from Spain. The Europeans brought it.”

慶祝哥倫布日讓我們回到了幾十年前，而不是向未來邁進。我敢說，在21世紀的現代拉丁美洲，大多數人已經超越了哥倫布。我曾經開玩笑地問一個厄瓜多人為什麼拉丁美洲有腐敗的政府，他回答說：“腐敗來自西班牙。歐洲人帶來了它。”

So, at what cost do we celebrate a man whose lost voyage caused centuries of exploitation of mineral resources, conquest and slavery — let’s not forget that European expansion in America also influenced the transatlantic slave trade. Why not forget about this man once and for all?

那麼，我們慶祝一個失去航行的人的代價是什麼呢？這個失去航行導致了幾個世紀的礦產資源開發、征服和奴隸制度的剝削，我們不要忘記歐洲在美洲的擴張也影響了跨大西洋的奴隸貿易。為什麼不徹底忘記這個人呢？

If we think about it in terms of science and exploration, the Mayans were exploring the universe with their own observatories long before Columbus arrived. Columbus was looking for India, yet the Mayans were looking for the planet Venus. They modeled their architecture and reinforced their government emulating the cosmos. So why not celebrate the Mayan astronomers who found Venus? Why not celebrate the Mayan kings who used astronomy and engineering to shape politics in their kingdoms?

如果我們從科學和探索的角度來思考，瑪雅人在哥倫布到來之前就用他們自己的天文臺探索宇宙了。哥倫布是在尋找印度，而瑪雅人則是在尋找金星。他們以宇宙為模板建造建築，並透過天文學和工程學塑造王國的政治。那麼為什麼不慶祝髮現金星的瑪雅天文學家呢？為什麼不慶祝利用天文學和工程學塑造王國政治的瑪雅國王呢？

Columbus Day has become the residue of white supremacy. It is the justification of genocide. It is the justification of imperialism. It is the justification of slavery and the justification of Indigenous people’s so-called inferiority to Europeans.

哥倫布日已經成為白人至上主義的殘餘。它是種族滅絕的辯護。它是帝國主義的辯護。它是奴隸制度的辯護，也是對土著人民被認為比歐洲人低劣的辯護。

Honestly, such justification is quite outdated and relentlessly tiring to even bring up over the dinner table. It does not spark an interesting, cultured conversation anymore. Perhaps try something else — I suggest the current state of Latin American economies or the current president of El Salvador.

老實說，這樣的辯解已經過時了，甚至在餐桌上提起也讓人感到厭倦。它已經無法引發有趣、有文化的對話了。也許可以嘗試其他話題——我建議討論一下拉美經濟的現狀或者薩爾瓦多的現任總統。

Now, those topics are really about the future.

現在，這些話題確實是關於未來的。