Thomas Breen photo
David Generoso by the ex-Columbus statue's plinth: "We think it was was something that was stolen from us unjustly."
A half-dozen members of a group called the Italian-American Defense League gathered in Wooster Square Park to celebrate Columbus Day — and to renew their call for a return of the long-gone statue depicting that federal holiday’s namesake.
The group charged with coming up with a new Italian heritage-celebrating sculpture for that same spot of Wooster Square Park, meanwhile, has now raised $320,000 out of its $400,000 goal.
That was the scene Monday morning beside the statue-less plinth on the southern end of Wooster Square Park.
On a contentious day back in June 2020, the Elicker administration removed a statue of Christopher Columbus that long stood at that very spot amid nationwide racial justice protests and a reckoning with the 15th-century explorer’s violent legacy and brutality toward the Native Taíno people.
A Columbus cutout at Monday's gathering.
The small gathering took place on a day that is still recognized by the federal government as Columbus Day, that is widely honored in municipalities and states across the country as Indigenous Peoples Day, and that is recognized in New Haven as Italian Heritage Day. It also took place several hours before a separate annual Indigenous Peoples Day gathering was scheduled to occur on the Green at 4 p.m.
Even though the Columbus statue has been gone for more than three years, and even though a new city-approved sculpture honoring New Haven’s Italian American community is in the works to take its place, those who showed up to that site in Wooster Square Park on Monday made clear that they still want the city to return the Columbus statue to its former home.
“We think it was was something that was stolen from us unjustly, both the statue and part of the cultural heritage here in New Haven,” said David Generoso, who grew up in the Hill and West Hills and now lives in Guilford. To him, honoring Columbus means honoring New Haven’s Italian American community and its accomplishments. “We want to see the statue go back.”
Frances Calzetta, who grew up in New Haven and now lives in Branford, agreed. As “a child of Italian American immigrants,” she said, Columbus has always to her been “a source of pride” and a representation of the “genius of Italian culture.”
What does she say to critics who say that Columbus in fact represents a history of genocide and displacement of Native Americans by European settlers and colonizers?
“Not factual!” she and East Havener Vincent Casanova replied in unison. Calzetta dismissed that more critical reading of Columbus’ legacy as coming from the “communist, Marxist” historian Howard Zinn.
Matthew Guarinieri, who lives in Clinton and is the president of the Italian-American Defense League, said that the group had gathered by the statue-less plinth to honor Columbus because Columbus Day is “an American holiday commemorating the life and legacy of Christopher Columbus.”
He said that the replacement sculpture — “Indicando la via al futuro,” or“Pointing the way to the future,” shows an Italian father and mother with their younger son, pointing skyward, and older daughter, who holds a book and wears a cross — was designed with a “21st-century lens” on history. That’s fine, he said. But the history viewed by those who put up the Columbus statue in the 19th century and honored it in the 20th century should not be forgotten.
The Italian-American Defense League, meanwhile, is still pushing forward with a federal lawsuit, filed in June, seeking to compel the city to put the Columbus statue back. Two other groups have already tried and failed to sue the city to try to return the statue to its former home.
On Sept. 5, city Assistant Corporation Counsel Earle Giovanniello filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit on the grounds that “it fails to state any claim upon which relief may be granted.” Norm Pattis, the attorney representing the plaintiffs in this lawsuit, filed an opposition to that motion to dismiss on Sept. 26.
“It’s time to move on and stop wasting the city’s time and money on a lawsuit that is completely unproductive,” Mayor Justin Elicker told the Independent in a phone interview for this story. “We’ve worked with many in the Italian community to honor New Haven’s Italian heritage,” he continued, “and are quite proud of the outcome of the monument committee’s work to reflect Italian contributions to our city.”
$320K Raised So Far For Replacement Sculpture
Contributed photo
Artist Marc Massaro at work on new Wooster Square monument.
In a follow-up email comment provided for this story, Wooster Square Monument Committee Co-Chair Bill Iovanne said that the committee has already raised $320,000 in cash and pledges towards its $400,000 goal to erect the new Wooster Square sculpture.
He said the new sculpture is almost completed. The next step is to ship it to the foundry for casting and bronzing. This should take a few months, he said. “We plan to begin work on the site in late Spring of 2024 with a dedication of the project scheduled for early June 2024.”
“We’re so grateful to everyone who has contributed towards this monumental project (pun intended),” Iovanne added on Monday. “The support from the community has been an inspiration to this committee. We take great pride in honoring our rich Italian heritage and the resilient spirit of our ancestors.’
He said that the committee will soon be ending the “Plaque Inscription Donor” phase of its campaign, on Oct. 30. These donors of $5,000 and more will have their family name on the new bronze plaque to be unveiled at the statue’s dedication.
Donations of $250 and higher should be made payable to Wooster Square Conservancy and mailed to the Wooster Square Monument Committee, 50 Brewery Street #8805, New Haven, CT 06532. Donations can also be made online here.
As for today’s local celebration of Italian Heritage Day, Iovanne wrote: “We are proud to celebrate Italian American Heritage Day as we honor the sacrifices and struggles of our ancestors and celebrate the Italian Immigrant experience in New Haven. The sculpture we plan to dedicate next June is symbolic of the immigrants who came to America in search of a better life. It was not an easy journey, but perseverance, hard work, strong family ties and devotion to faith have made the experience a positive one that we hope carries on to future generations.”
So a statue of Columbus is the only/best way to celebrate Italian-American heritage? Really?
It's not really my responsibility to educate these folks on decades of history showing Columbus's dark side, so this is just a little taster straight from Wikipedia. There are a dozen different sources cited in this section alone and the protestors can delve deeper at their leisure.
"From April to August 1494, Columbus explored Cuba and Jamaica, then returned to Hispaniola. By the end of 1494, disease and famine had killed two-thirds of the Spanish settlers.[136] Columbus implemented encomienda,[137][138] a Spanish labor system that rewarded conquerors with the labor of conquered non-Christian people. Columbus executed Spanish colonists for minor crimes, and used dismemberment as punishment.[139] Columbus and the colonists enslaved the indigenous people,[140] including children.[141] Natives were beaten, raped, and tortured for the location of imagined gold.[142] Thousands committed suicide rather than face the oppression.[143][k]
In February 1495, Columbus rounded up about 1,500 Arawaks, some of whom had rebelled, in a great slave raid. About 500 of the strongest were shipped to Spain as slaves,[145] with about two hundred of those dying en route.[109][146]"
It just seems ridiculous to dispute this at this point. This information has been around for decades. Maybe it is telling that these protestors are all obviously quite old, and the information is certainly different from what they learned in school. But aging doesn't mean you have to stop learning so I'm not really willing to give them that as an excuse.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Columbus#Second_voyage_(1493–1496)