NORTHAMPTON — A sponsor of legislation to have Massachusetts recognize Indigenous Peoples Day, Sen. Jo Comerford, D-Northampton, this week made an annual appeal for her colleagues to act soon on the measure that has been stalled in the state Legislature.
As Comerford renewed her push for the legislation that would replace Columbus Day, the Holyoke City Council on Tuesday, in a 9-3 vote, approved an order that will change the city’s calendar sections to reflect that the second Monday in October will be Indigenous Peoples Day.
Holyoke joins several other communities across Massachusetts, including Northampton and Amherst, in revising the holiday, though the state and federal holiday continues to honor Christopher Columbus.
For Comerford, the 250th anniversary of the United States is an appropriate time to set aside the recognition of Columbus and instead honor Indigenous peoples.
“His arrival marked the beginning of colonization, dispossession, enslavement and violence against Indigenous people,” Comerford said. “That is not an inconvenient footnote. It is part of our history, and we have a responsibility to tell it honestly — especially as we mark 250 years of America.”
Comerford added, “Our commonwealth has an opportunity — and an obligation — to take an honest look at our history and ask what kind of commonwealth we want to pass on.”
The legislation Comerford filed in the current 2025-2026 legislative session is S.2113, An act establishing an Indigenous Peoples Day. Rep. Christine Barber, D-Somerville, sponsored the same proposal, H.3292, in the House.
The Senate bill was sent to study, while the House version was referred to the House Committee on Steering, Policy and Scheduling in late 2025. In each of the previous two sessions, 2021-2022 and 2023-2024, the Joint Committee on State Administration and Regulatory Oversight reported the legislation favorably.
Comerford said Columbus Day is not needed as a way to recognize Italian Americans.
“We can honor Italian American heritage. And we can honor Indigenous people,” she said. “In 2021, President Biden became the first U.S. president to formally recognize Indigenous Peoples Day. It is time for Massachusetts to do the same.”
In Holyoke, Columbus Day will be removed and replaced with Indigenous Peoples Day, following a recommendation from the Ordinance Committee to change the city calendar.
The order was brought forward by Ward 7 Councilor Meg Magrath-Smith, who read a statement at the Ordinance Committee in September. Magrath-Smith explained that a holiday represents what a community values and what it wants to highlight.
“Simply put, changing this holiday to Indigenous Peoples Day gives us the opportunity to tell a story about America that is wider in scope, one that started long before 1492 and which recognizes Indigenous communities as living, thriving communities today,” Magrath-Smith said.
She added that she would work to ensure Italian American culture and contributions continue to be celebrated in the city.
Those voting in favor of the order, along with Magrath-Smith, were Ward 1 Councilor Jenny Rivera, Ward 3 Councilor Anne Thalheimer, Ward 6 Councilor Juan C. Anderson-Burgos, At-Large Councilor Patti Devine, Ward 2 Councilor Nicole Maisonet, Council President Tessa R. Murphy-Romboletti, Ward 4 Councilor Richard Purcell and At-Large Councilor Israel Rivera. Opposing the order were At-Large Councilor Michael J. Sullivan, At-Large Councilor Howard Greaney Jr. and Ward 5 Councilor Linda Vacon.
Anderson-Burgos observed that, being from Puerto Rico, he would like to see the Birth of the New World statue commemorating Columbus, installed a decade ago on the coastline of Arecibo, turned into a pile of rubble, adding that he can’t celebrate an attacker who helped wipe out Indigenous people.
“Please let’s not forget, Christopher Columbus didn’t discover anything,” Anderson-Burgos said. “He was treacherous, horrible, killed people, raped people and the list goes on.”
Sullivan, though, said the council should supplement rather than replace Columbus Day, suggesting that councilors are elected to attract industries to Holyoke, broaden the tax base and promote quality education, not to deal with such divisive national issues.
“In my opinion, this is strictly virtue signaling and something that is doing nothing but driving wedges and conflict in our community,” Sullivan said.
While Sullivan said he doesn’t condone the actions of Columbus in the 1400s, neither does he condone incidents in the region in the early 1700s, such as the Pascommuck Massacre in Easthampton and the Raid on Deerfield.
“I see no harm in using both Indigenous Peoples Day and Columbus Day as the holiday,” Greaney said. “It’s an American tradition, let’s stick with it.”
Israel Rivera, though, said it was not fair to call the order divisive and that there was wide support for a way to “rectify and repair.”
“We all know where and how this happened, we’ve learned the history on two different spectrums,” Rivera said.
“Comparing a couple of events to the pretty much the erasure of people, it’s not even fair to me,” Rivera added.
Devine said she was on the council in the 1990s when members agreed to change from a Board of Aldermen to a City Council.
“People accepted that, that was our role to look into that,” Devine said, noting that sometimes changes happen based on what constituents want through the petition process.
Vacon said she’s concerned with relitigating events from 1492, and doing so creates a fictional narrative.
“It’s a holiday that recognizes the exploration that led to the fact we’re all here today,” Vacon said. “If that hadn’t happened, we wouldn’t be here today.”
Purcell said that all Columbus discovered was that he was lost and starving, and that once he landed, he began a genocide against the Americas’ estimated 40 million to 90 million people.
“It also started the slavery movement, because that started the path for people to bring slaves to the country,” Purcell said.
