Opinion: What happened to California’s native peoples was nothing less than genocide

To the editor: David L. Ulin claims that making Indigenous Peoples Day a city holiday in Los Angeles would “represent a necessary reckoning” with American history and would serve as a means of “acknowledging the massive disruptions of the past.” (“Goodbye, Columbus,” Opinion, June 25)

Yet he writes nothing about the fate of these indigenous people under Yankee rule in California. This seems strange, but maybe it’s not.

We like to honor history’s losers because it provides us with a means of forgetting. We can feel good about ourselves and believe that we have made amends for the crimes upon which modern California is based. We no longer need feel guilty about those past “disruptions” (a striking euphemism for “genocide”— a fitting word for the destruction of the California Indians).

Thom Andersen, Los Angeles

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To the editor: I can’t think of anyone who would object philosophically to an Indigenous Peoples Day, so long as it was not proposed to replace a respected holiday, whether Columbus Day, Fourth of July or Presidents Day. We don’t celebrate Columbus Day because of any relationship to indigenous peoples, but to mark to the apparent beginning of what has become the most successful experiment in all of human history — our country.

One might wonder what would have become of this land if all European intrusions were kept at bay.

George A. Vandeman, Pacific Palisades

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To the editor: If we Americans want to honor our great country as the “home of the free and the land of the brave,” then we must honestly acknowledge that terrible atrocities were committed by our forefathers against Native Americans tribes.

Until very recently, almost none of the shameful decimation of these nations of people could be found in American history curriculum. The good news is that this is changing.

If school boards continue this trend and express the courage to rectify the antiseptic perspective of “cowboys and Indians,” perhaps teachers will finally give an honest, warts-and-all portrayal of “how the West was won.“

We cannot change the past, but hopefully we can learn from history and vow to fight against those who would return our nation to divisive barbarism. And while fostering love and inclusiveness, let us pause to remember California’s decimated Chumash, the Trail of Tears and other outrages perpetrated against Native Americans.

Daryl L James Jr., Palm Springs

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