October 8, 2018: Indigenous Peoples’ Day
Columbus Day is listed as one of 10 official federal holidays, but fewer than half of U.S. states give their workers Columbus Day as a paid holiday. See Drew Desliver, Working on Columbus Day? It Depends on Where You Live, Pew Research Center (Oct. 8, 2015). According to one news report, “Just this year, at least a dozen U.S. cities–including San Francisco and Cincinnati–decided to stop observing Columbus Day and will instead celebrate Indigenous Peoples’ Day.” Discoverers’ Day Is Not a State Holiday, KHON2 (Oct. 8, 2018).
Here in Hawaiʻi, Columbus Day has not been observed as a state holiday since 1988. In that year, Act 220 was passed which states: “The second Monday in October shall be known as Discoverers’ Day, in recognition of the Polynesian discoverers of the Hawaiian Islands . . . .” Haw. Rev. Stat. § 8.1-5. The relevant excerpt from Act 220 is below.
Monday, October 8, 2018 is Discoverers’ Day in Hawaiʻi. We stand in solidarity with other indigenous peoples as we recognize Lā Poʻe ʻŌiwi.