Considering Columbus

It was 1979. No, it was about 50 years ago. No, make that 1492.

That’s when Christopher Columbus set foot in what is now the Americas, students said Monday during lunch at Christopher Columbus Middle School.

Five hundred and seven years after Columbus set sail for India and landed in the so-called New World, students were a little hazy on the date, but otherwise solid on the history of their school’s namesake.

They knew he left from Spain, dispatched by Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand. They knew there were three ships--the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria. They knew most people thought the world was flat back then and feared sailing right off the edge of the horizon. And they knew Columbus didn’t believe that.

By and large, they were proud their school was named after the Italian explorer.

“Our school was named after a famous sailor because he traveled, like, all over the sea,” explained eighth-grader Moises Orozco, 13, standing in front of a cafeteria mural showing a Spanish ship being tossed on the high seas.

“He was trying to find Asia, but he stumbled upon America,” added eighth-grader Gabriel Gutana. “Our school’s named after a famous person in history, so that’s good. It gives us more popularity.”

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When it came to whether Columbus was a good guy or a bad guy, opinions were mixed.

“He came to the Americas to find the Indians,” said a seventh-grader. “He liked them, I think.”

Twelve-year-old Janine Evans had a more nuanced view.

“In the beginning, the Indians liked him,” she said. “But then they didn’t, because the Europeans were stealing their land. He thought he found the land, and he put a flag in it.”

Eighth-grader Alberto Hernandez said he thought Columbus was “very bad” to Native Americans.

“When he first got there, he was good to them, but then he started playing with them,” he said, adding that the name was “all right for a school.”

Columbus Middle School survived the 500th anniversary of Columbus’ landing in the West Indies--and the ensuing national debate about whether the visionary navigator was a hero who belonged in the pantheon of history, or an invading slave trader and mass murderer--without changing its name.

Yet teachers and the interim principal said the history topic is not taught the way it once was, including at Columbus Middle School, where 81% of the 1,300 students are minorities--of whom 0.5% are Native American--and 19% are white.

The current eighth-grade history book, a 1999 Houghton Mifflin text called “Across the Centuries,” devotes about three pages to the famous explorer and makes several other references to him.

“I think most of us in public education have been sensitized to the lives of Native Americans and the fact that their part of history had not been sufficiently told,” said interim Principal Jack Moscowitz, former principal of University High School in West Los Angeles, where the school mascot was changed from the Warriors to the Wildcats for reasons of racial sensitivity.

For similar reasons, the school did not hold any special celebrations Monday.

“There is nothing that is done on campus specifically to commemorate Columbus or his efforts to land a ship or two on the coastline of this country,” Moscowitz said. “There is also a sensitivity to the Native Americans. We respect [the holiday] and deal with it quietly.”

In the early 1990s, Columbus’ role in history became so controversial that retired teacher Merle Cunnington, who painted a colorful four-panel mural in the school library for the 500th anniversary of Columbus’ landing, refused to let the media photograph the piece because he feared it would be vandalized.

The 65-foot mural depicts Columbus’ journey from royal meetings in Spain with officials poring over ancient maps, to Native Americans running from tropical forests to greet Columbus and his men on the beaches.

“There were many voices against Columbus in the national news,” said Cunnington, who taught history and art at Columbus for 33 years. Someday he hopes to paint a mural at the school celebrating the contributions of Native Americans.

While scholars debate and some populists wonder if Columbus Day should be changed to “Oppressor of New World People’s Day” or “Discoverer’s Day,” students at Columbus Middle School said they were not ready to say goodbye to Columbus.

“He was a good explorer,” said Robyn Herrera.