Vigil to Protest Columbus Day

Campus minority groups will gather tomorrow in a silent vigil to remind the Harvard community of the multiple meanings of this week's 500th anniversary of Columbus's voyage.

The vigil is planned by the Minority Student Alliance (MSA), an association of representatives from many undergraduate minority organizations.

"History has always glorified the colonialists," said E. Franklin Miller '94, the event's organizer and the Black Student Association (BSA) representative on the MSA. "We're trying to shed a little light from some different perspectives."

"We want to let people at Harvard know that Columbus Day is not just a day of celebration," said Susan Tien '93, an Asian-American Association (AAA) representative in MSA.

Columbus Day has traditionally been an official University holiday, as it is this year.

The vigil is slated to begin at 11 a.m. on the Widener Library steps, Miller said. Participants will wear black to commemorate those who died as a result of European colonization of America.

Leaders from a number of campus minority groups will begin to speak at noon about what the legacy of Columbus' voyage has meant for their cultures.

"It helps us to recognize there are other consequences [to the Columbus discovery]," said Efrain Cortes '94, president of La O, the campus Puerto Rican organization.

MSA members stressed the diversity of the groups expected at the event, including members of AAA, La O, Raza, Native Americans at Harvard, BSA, the Chinese Students Organization, the Korean Students Organization, Harvard Hillel and others.

Colonialism and its legacy affected many groups besides Native Americans, Franklin said.

"That's many peoples," Franklin said. "That's why it's an MSA thing."