If you think about it, celebrating “Indigenous Peoples Day” is anti-immigrant xenophobia. It is an act that holds out native people as being somehow more important than non-natives.
The essence of life is to change and to move. If there was something so special about where we first came from, then we should all be trying to crawl back into the womb.
There is nothing special about being indigenous. “I was here first” gives you no claim to any lands. The only valid ongoing claim to land ownership comes from two things:
1. Sufficient productive use of the land so that everyone around you can adequately benefit from you being there (this productive use gets certified domestically through taxes and globally through trade).
2. Individually and collectively having the ability to defend your claim.
The indigenous people who once occupied this land failed on both of these counts. That is not worthy of celebration.
Christopher Columbus helped begin the development of this land into what it is today - the breadbasket of the world. Whatever flaws he may have had, that development has bettered the lives of countless numbers of people throughout the globe. That is worthy of celebration.
The Indians weren’t even here first according to digs in 09, 11, and so forth.
I agree though, we should focus on the good that come from it. There was no kumbaya singing going on before Columbus came. It was savagery, war, torture.
The peaceful west coast Haida Indians were cannibals, but let’s push that under the rug.