Columbus’ conquests cleared the way for the later introduction of capitalist relations and imperialist domination by the United States of America. After centuries of dispossession, generational poverty, and discrimination, descendants of Indigenous people and African slaves still struggle under the same racism of this system. However, they are also resisting, leading the way in building a multiracial movement led by the hardest-hit working people. This is a movement we can all join. 

Indigenous People’s Day, formerly Columbus Day, is usually marked variously by protests (or celebrations of “Italian Pride”), demands for the removal of statues and changing the names of markers, or cultural celebrations and gatherings. Progressive educators (after their day off) teach about the Indigenous people of the Americas and their struggles against colonialism. These struggles continue today, in the heart of the United States – New York City – where millions of displaced/migrant Indigenous and Indigenous-descendant workers toil. 

When Columbus first landed on Hispaniola, he said of the native Arawak people “They would make fine servants… we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want.” Now, 500-plus years later, Columbus’ mentality lives on in the bosses and politicians that look upon immigrant and Black workers – the descendants of Indigenous people and African slaves – as servants to be subjugated and squeezed for profit. 

As colonies and former colonies around the world have been destabilized by imperialist forces, immigrants are driven to the US by war, violence and economic desperation. Many come to New York City, where politicians claim to welcome immigrants only to throw them to blood-sucking bosses eager to work them to death. Today, Taino, Mixteco, Garifuna and other Afro-descendant or Indigenous-descendant workers are not toiling in mines to extract gold for the Spanish but instead are working 24-hour shifts, round-the-clock without sleep or rest for days on end as home attendants. They work 80+ hour weeks in restaurants, nail salons, garment factories, laundromats for bosses that get away with only paying a pittance. These inhumane working conditions, that not only destroy the lives of Indigenous- descendant immigrant workers, but also drag down the conditions for all other workers in the US too, are the 21st century consequence of Columbus’ colonialism. 

But so too continues workers’ resistance against imperialist exploitation: home attendants of Indigenous and Afro-descent are leading workers of all ethnicities and industries to join them in ending one of the most extreme forms of exploitation and crime against humanity in our society today – the 24-hour workday. They call on all those that want to end racism and imperialism to join them on October 18, 12pm to rally at NYC’s City Hall and demand an end to the 24-hour workday!  

RSVP to the Rally at https://nomore24.org