WAUSAU, WI (WSAU) — The Marathon County Diversity Affairs Commission has begun discussions about bringing the Indigenous People’s Day movement to the area.
Chairman Yee Leng Xiong says it’s about recognizing both sides of American history, both from the settlers perspective and from the Native American point of view. “Especially in the school systems, a lot of our students are taught the, I guess you could say the nice version, of what’s happened in history,” he said. “There’s a different side of history that has not been told, I think that’s where it’s coming from.”
In recent years several cities have broken from the tradition of celebrating Columbus Day on October 12th, the day the European explorer landed in America in 1492. The state of South Dakota was the first to break that tradition in 1989, with the City of Berkeley, California to follow in 1992. In the last decade, several other cities and states have followed suit including Minnesota, Alaska, and Vermont. Cities in Wisconsin that recognize the day include La Crosse, Madison, Milwaukee, and Superior. The Stevens Point School District also recognizes the day.
Xiong says before they get too deep into crafting an ordinance or measure to go before Supervisors, they’d like to get a wide range of input and hear from those in the school systems such as Wausau School Board member Tricia Zunker, who brought the proposal to the committee. “We’re going to try to educate the community a little more, get the Native Americans involved as well so we can continue to talk about this and get other organizations at the table.”
The goal is to have a county ordinance that recognizes Indigenous People’s Day sometime in the next two years. Xiong says if not in 2019, but by 2020.
A Bipartisan bill that would have created Indigenous Peoples Day in Wisconsin was introduced in early 2018 but failed to get out of the legislature.
