Dia de la Raza

While the United States celebrates Columbus Day with a parade down New York’s Fifth Avenue and a presidential proclamation about daring and discovery, most Latin American countries mark the explorer’s October 12, 1492 arrival in the New World with ambivalence. For them, el Dia de la Raza is a conflicted commemoration of the meeting of European and indigenous peoples, an often-brutal collision that nevertheless produced today’s Latin American “race.” Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez weighed in firmly on one side four years ago when he renamed the anniversary the Day of Indigenous Resistance. In 2004, activists toppled a statue of Columbus, dragged it through the streets of Caracas, and attempted to put it on trial. The seafarer earned a temporary reprieve when police broke up the protest.