WEBVTT - Monumental 0:00:00.760 --> 0:00:04.680 Hey, dear Latino USA listener. So there's a new series 0:00:04.760 --> 0:00:06.960 by PRX and we wanted to share it with you. 0:00:07.000 --> 0:00:11.720 It's called Monumental, and it's well kind of what you'd 0:00:11.720 --> 0:00:15.440 expect by the title. It's about how monuments reflect the 0:00:15.520 --> 0:00:19.200 story and the realities of America. Quite a topic, huh. 0:00:19.600 --> 0:00:23.400 If there's one figure that's particularly complex and hurtful for 0:00:23.480 --> 0:00:27.639 US Latinos to revisit, and if there's one figure with 0:00:27.840 --> 0:00:31.880 a lot of statues who is particularly complex and yes, 0:00:32.280 --> 0:00:36.080 even hurtful for many Latinos to revisit, that would be 0:00:36.320 --> 0:00:40.440 Christopher Columbus, the man who was glorified for centuries as 0:00:40.600 --> 0:00:45.919 elds guridor the America, the man who discovered America. This 0:00:46.000 --> 0:00:51.640 episode of Monumental questions exactly that the myth of Columbus 0:00:51.960 --> 0:00:55.920 as a discoverer, and it highlights the bloody history that 0:00:56.000 --> 0:01:00.360 has often been erased from that very glorifying narrative. And 0:01:00.600 --> 0:01:05.360 it turns out that that myth is present in monuments 0:01:05.400 --> 0:01:09.319 that are still up in places like Arecibo, Puerto Rico. 0:01:10.000 --> 0:01:11.840 Here's the episode and enjoy. 0:01:14.120 --> 0:01:18.480 The whole idea of the drama and imposition of the 0:01:18.520 --> 0:01:23.720 monumental landscape is that it is meant to feel natural. 0:01:24.400 --> 0:01:26.800 It is not meant to make you stop and think. 0:01:26.920 --> 0:01:30.240 It is meant to be ambient, and in the case 0:01:30.280 --> 0:01:33.039 of so many monuments, it is meant to dwarf you. 0:01:33.240 --> 0:01:35.760 It is meant to make you feel smaller. It is 0:01:35.840 --> 0:01:39.720 meant to make you look up and worship. 0:01:44.120 --> 0:01:49.400 This is Monumental, a podcast series produced by PRX. I'm 0:01:49.440 --> 0:01:57.480 your host Ashley Seaford. The voice you heard at the 0:01:57.520 --> 0:02:02.200 top is Elizabeth Alexander. She's the president of the Mellon Foundation. 0:02:02.920 --> 0:02:06.600 In twenty twenty one, the Mellon Foundation supported an audit 0:02:06.720 --> 0:02:11.280 of every last monument across the US. What they found 0:02:11.320 --> 0:02:14.680 out was that there were a few front runners. Coming 0:02:14.720 --> 0:02:18.880 in at number three, just behind Abraham Lincoln and George 0:02:18.919 --> 0:02:23.160 Washington with one hundred and forty nine monuments across these 0:02:23.320 --> 0:02:28.919 United States, was Christopher Columbus, but that number has been 0:02:29.040 --> 0:02:35.280 falling fast. When I was growing up, Christopher Columbus was 0:02:35.320 --> 0:02:39.480 the reason for Columbus Day. He represented a three day 0:02:39.520 --> 0:02:43.320 weekend and the kickoff for the holiday season. It wasn't 0:02:43.400 --> 0:02:46.359 until I got to college that I started questioning why 0:02:46.480 --> 0:02:49.840 we celebrate him in the first place. I heard first 0:02:49.919 --> 0:02:53.520 hand from other Native American students. While a long weekend 0:02:53.600 --> 0:02:57.800 for me was a source of pain and sadness for them, 0:02:58.120 --> 0:03:00.840 it was a really stark example of how people I 0:03:00.919 --> 0:03:03.600 cared about were forced to see so many of us 0:03:04.040 --> 0:03:08.000 celebrating in our ignorance, And of course it didn't matter 0:03:08.040 --> 0:03:13.360 whether that ignorance was wilful or not. Listening to the 0:03:13.400 --> 0:03:16.400 reporting in this episode, I realized that a lot of 0:03:16.440 --> 0:03:20.040 the experiences I was having were paralleled by what was 0:03:20.080 --> 0:03:25.679 happening nationwide. Nineteen ninety two was the five hundredth anniversary 0:03:25.760 --> 0:03:30.440 of Columbus's arrival in the quote unquote New World, and 0:03:30.480 --> 0:03:33.920 that moment sparked a lot of the reappraisal of Columbus 0:03:33.960 --> 0:03:37.600 that were still very much in the middle of soon 0:03:37.920 --> 0:03:40.880 plenty of other perspectives on the Columbus story, it could 0:03:40.960 --> 0:03:45.640 no longer be ignored. Native and Indigenous community stood up 0:03:45.720 --> 0:03:49.440 on behalf of their own populations that had been decimated 0:03:49.880 --> 0:03:55.640 even eradicated by Western colonization. And while Indigenous People's Day 0:03:55.760 --> 0:03:59.880 was proposed as counter programming starting in the late nineteen seventies, 0:04:00.360 --> 0:04:03.400 it wasn't until twenty twenty one that is sitting President 0:04:03.600 --> 0:04:08.320 Joe Biden actually acknowledged it. Over the last few years, 0:04:08.640 --> 0:04:11.880 we've seen the fight over Columbus as a symbol reaching 0:04:11.880 --> 0:04:15.920 a new pitch, with statues being torn down all over 0:04:15.960 --> 0:04:32.720 the place, while statues of Christopher Columbus have been coming 0:04:32.800 --> 0:04:39.800 down in places like Saint Paul, Minnesota, Chicago, and even Columbus, Ohio. 0:04:40.360 --> 0:04:43.960 In this episode, you'll hear the story of the largest 0:04:44.040 --> 0:04:49.400 one in the world, standing tall, very very tall in 0:04:49.440 --> 0:04:53.520 a US territory. We'll look at the legacy of Columbus 0:04:53.560 --> 0:04:58.120 and how it fed into America's own colonialist ambitions, and 0:04:58.240 --> 0:05:04.120 we'll explore how some community are dismantling and reclaiming those narratives. Today. 0:05:05.160 --> 0:05:10.240 Producer Giselli Regaetau, Associate professor of journalism at Barok College 0:05:10.279 --> 0:05:12.839 in New York City, takes the story from here. 0:05:23.320 --> 0:05:26.800 Arecibo is a small beach town in Puerto Rico that 0:05:26.960 --> 0:05:31.719 faces the Atlantic Ocean. The waves are pretty rough, but 0:05:31.760 --> 0:05:35.320 I got in the water anyway. It was warm, pristine 0:05:35.360 --> 0:05:40.840 and clear. On the shore, there are several large rock formations. 0:05:41.160 --> 0:05:43.960 The beach is filled with palm trees. Some of the 0:05:43.960 --> 0:05:48.479 houses are partially destroyed, their walls falling apart, but the 0:05:48.560 --> 0:05:55.680 general filling is still idyllic and lugar sagro. We are 0:05:55.760 --> 0:06:00.640 located in a sacred place, says Pluma Barbara Moreno. She's 0:06:00.680 --> 0:06:05.160 an indigenous activist who lives in this area. Moreno is 0:06:05.240 --> 0:06:09.240 forty nine years old. She has brown skin and very long, 0:06:09.440 --> 0:06:12.359 dark straight hair that moves all over her face with 0:06:12.440 --> 0:06:17.000 the strong wind. She's wearing this colorful necklace and earrings 0:06:17.000 --> 0:06:20.479 that are made of wood and feathers. From where we're 0:06:20.560 --> 0:06:24.600 standing in Punta Caracoli's beach, she points out a giant 0:06:24.720 --> 0:06:28.720 statue that's located more than two miles away, Siga Mina 0:06:28.760 --> 0:06:32.839 Jumbogo behelpico. If you walk a little bit, you see 0:06:32.880 --> 0:06:36.720 it speak. She says. I was running earlier today and 0:06:36.800 --> 0:06:39.640 I actually stopped when I saw the statue far away 0:06:39.640 --> 0:06:43.160 on the shore. It's way taller than the palm trees around. 0:06:43.200 --> 0:06:44.600 It was a little bit. 0:06:45.960 --> 0:06:48.680 I'm going to tell you the truth, she says. I 0:06:48.720 --> 0:06:50.719 pass in front of it. It's on a roof that's 0:06:50.800 --> 0:06:53.960 used by the community. But I don't even like looking 0:06:54.000 --> 0:06:57.200 at it because every time I look at it, I 0:06:57.240 --> 0:07:06.440 remember an unpunished crime. Moreno is talking about the birth 0:07:06.600 --> 0:07:10.320 of the New world. That's a monument of Christopher Columbus 0:07:10.440 --> 0:07:14.360 that is larger than the Statue of Liberty. It was 0:07:14.400 --> 0:07:19.080 inaugurated in Arecibo in twenty sixteen. I was surprised by 0:07:19.120 --> 0:07:23.520 how recently the statue was installed here. By then, many 0:07:23.560 --> 0:07:27.000 Columbus statues had been vandalized and a few taken down 0:07:27.040 --> 0:07:32.480 all over the world. Moreno and other indigenous groups have 0:07:32.720 --> 0:07:37.280 protested against this monument for years. So monumento di ferrari 0:07:37.520 --> 0:07:42.640 historico purque this is a monument of historical fraud. Why 0:07:43.040 --> 0:07:45.200 because first we have to talk about the fact that 0:07:45.280 --> 0:07:49.080 here there were no conquests. People talk about the conquerors. 0:07:49.440 --> 0:07:53.000 Here there are no conquerors. There are invaders, she says. 0:07:53.840 --> 0:07:56.880 Moreno says she and other groups will continue to fight. 0:07:57.640 --> 0:08:00.760 Right now. They are asking that statues and names of 0:08:00.840 --> 0:08:05.080 the so called conquerors be removed from everywhere in Puerto Rico. 0:08:05.720 --> 0:08:10.200 It's a tad one representa el polo criminal. This statue 0:08:10.200 --> 0:08:13.280 represents the worst of crimes. If they're going to take 0:08:13.320 --> 0:08:16.080 it down right now or not, I don't know. Maybe 0:08:16.080 --> 0:08:19.080 it won't be right now, but it will happen. Because 0:08:19.120 --> 0:08:23.240 we believe in justice, the justice we can perpetuate ourselves. 0:08:23.800 --> 0:08:31.520 We tirelessly will continue to fight, she says. On my draft. 0:08:31.560 --> 0:08:34.000 To get closer to the statue, I stopped to get 0:08:34.040 --> 0:08:36.960 coffee at a food truck. It's parked in front of 0:08:36.960 --> 0:08:47.680 a hardware store called Ferreteria Caracolis. Felix Mielis is the 0:08:47.720 --> 0:08:52.800 owner of the store. You can see the statue from here, 0:08:52.880 --> 0:08:56.240 he tells me proudly. His store is about half a 0:08:56.280 --> 0:09:00.079 mile from the monument. Mielis sees the statue in a 0:09:00.160 --> 0:09:04.720 very different way than Pluma Moreno, the indigenous activist into 0:09:04.880 --> 0:09:11.400 Lando Mueno. Touristically speaking, it's very good, he says. Mielis 0:09:11.520 --> 0:09:14.720 was born and raised in Arecibo. He's seen lots of 0:09:14.800 --> 0:09:21.400 changes since the statue got here. On weekends, there's a 0:09:21.520 --> 0:09:24.800 men's traffic. It's been very favorable for all the businesses 0:09:24.960 --> 0:09:28.520 for the town of Arecibo. Many people have been motivated 0:09:28.559 --> 0:09:32.280 to set up shops in the area. Basically, Arecibo was 0:09:32.320 --> 0:09:36.120 not on the map before, he says. Mieli says he 0:09:36.280 --> 0:09:40.120 knows that other Columbus statues have been removed, but he 0:09:40.240 --> 0:09:43.600 thinks the Birth of the New World belongs right here. 0:09:44.600 --> 0:09:47.840 Part the lictorial entrobais para Obarama. 0:09:48.720 --> 0:09:51.959 It is part of our country's history, for the good 0:09:52.440 --> 0:10:10.199 or the bad, he says. I'm now rid in front 0:10:10.240 --> 0:10:12.800 of the Birth of the New World on a narrow 0:10:12.880 --> 0:10:18.160 coastal road in Arecibo. Seeing this massive bronze monument up 0:10:18.160 --> 0:10:22.560 close hits me even harder than I expected. The gigantic 0:10:22.640 --> 0:10:25.360 Columbus is on top of a hill facing the beach. 0:10:26.040 --> 0:10:30.800 Picture a twenty story building. It's taller than that. I'm 0:10:30.840 --> 0:10:32.920 here with a Puerto Rican historian. 0:10:33.640 --> 0:10:36.800 My name is Aura Hiraja Royo, and I am an 0:10:36.800 --> 0:10:40.040 assistant professor of history at Eastern Illinois University, and I'm 0:10:40.080 --> 0:10:43.600 originally from Bajamont, Puerto Rico, which is twenty minutes west 0:10:43.640 --> 0:10:44.280 of San Juan. 0:10:45.120 --> 0:10:49.600 auDA hiral studies activism in Puerto Rico. She's wearing two 0:10:49.679 --> 0:10:53.520 long silver earrings that say in one critica or critic 0:10:54.040 --> 0:10:58.439 and on the other luchadorra or fighter. I asked her 0:10:58.480 --> 0:11:00.839 to meet me here, and it's her first time seeing 0:11:00.840 --> 0:11:02.040 the statue up close. 0:11:03.840 --> 0:11:06.160 I just find its esthetically and not pleasing because it 0:11:06.160 --> 0:11:08.560 dimensions are so messed up, like the boat is so 0:11:08.679 --> 0:11:17.120 small and the Columbus looks so big. Oh, I'm just 0:11:17.240 --> 0:11:17.880 very stunned. 0:11:22.120 --> 0:11:25.640 The dimensions are a mishmash. Columbus is standing on a 0:11:25.679 --> 0:11:29.480 small boat behind the ship's helm. He's wearing a hat 0:11:29.520 --> 0:11:32.520 and a robe, and his right hand is raised awkwardly 0:11:32.800 --> 0:11:37.200 palm facing up. Behind him. There are three sails. They 0:11:37.240 --> 0:11:40.640 represent the ships from his journey across the Atlantic in 0:11:40.720 --> 0:11:44.840 fourteen ninety two. The statue sits on private land and 0:11:44.880 --> 0:11:48.319 you can't get close to it. It's fenced off. I'm 0:11:48.360 --> 0:11:51.679 going to tell you why in a minute. I visited 0:11:51.720 --> 0:11:55.200 the statue several times over a holiday weekend. A lot 0:11:55.280 --> 0:11:57.760 of people didn't even look at it at all. Just 0:11:57.760 --> 0:12:00.959 a few stop their cars, should take pictures from the road. 0:12:01.480 --> 0:12:03.440 Drasa Melandez is one of them. 0:12:03.840 --> 0:12:08.000 Joeywan Pennsylvania, Cata, Pennsylvania, she tells me. 0:12:08.080 --> 0:12:11.800 She lives in Lancaster, Pennsylvania and is a pre school teacher. 0:12:12.400 --> 0:12:15.680 She's of Puerto Rican descent and stops by the statue 0:12:15.800 --> 0:12:21.679 every time she's in this area. I don't know much 0:12:21.720 --> 0:12:24.520 about the history. There are people for and against it, 0:12:24.760 --> 0:12:28.120 but I just keep myself neutral and just enjoy the statue, 0:12:28.160 --> 0:12:32.080 she says. Historian Ala Hiral says she's never wanted to 0:12:32.160 --> 0:12:35.920 visit the statue because she believes Columbus is a problematic 0:12:36.200 --> 0:12:37.599 historical figure. 0:12:37.840 --> 0:12:41.439 And Porto Rico specifically, we have a huge problem glorifying 0:12:41.640 --> 0:12:44.440 great man. Christopher Columbus is the first one we learned 0:12:44.640 --> 0:12:46.600 to glorify in school. I don't know if you've heard 0:12:46.600 --> 0:12:54.800 about this, the Columbus song. It's like India, like in 0:12:54.840 --> 0:12:58.120 a little town in Italy. Naso Cristo Cologne. Cristopher Columbus 0:12:58.160 --> 0:13:06.600 was born yeah Lard and a Vegas. He enjoyed looking 0:13:06.640 --> 0:13:09.200 at shifts and speaking about sailing. 0:13:10.480 --> 0:13:15.320 In Hira's opinion, the European colonizer's impact here was devastating. 0:13:15.920 --> 0:13:18.360 The violence of people like Columbus and his cronies in 0:13:18.360 --> 0:13:21.720 the early stages of Conquisa was such that our native 0:13:21.720 --> 0:13:28.520 people got killed like on mass So it's so bizarre 0:13:28.960 --> 0:13:33.560 to see someone like him be praised as this intelligent person, 0:13:33.840 --> 0:13:35.000 this innovative person. 0:13:38.800 --> 0:13:41.520 It might seem bizarre now, but that is how the 0:13:41.679 --> 0:13:45.080 artists who created Birth of the New World saw Columbus 0:13:45.120 --> 0:13:49.720 when he built the statue. His name is Zurabi. He 0:13:49.800 --> 0:13:51.960 grew up in Georgia when it was part of the 0:13:51.960 --> 0:13:52.880 Soviet Union. 0:13:53.880 --> 0:13:58.960 If you take early nineties eighties, it's a fascination with 0:13:59.040 --> 0:14:00.680 a person who discs over the world. 0:14:01.920 --> 0:14:06.839 This is what upse Telly's grandson, Vasili. He's often his 0:14:06.880 --> 0:14:11.400 spokesperson because his grandfather lives in Moscow and doesn't speak English. 0:14:12.000 --> 0:14:15.240 It's higher than Statue of Liberty because in the idea 0:14:15.280 --> 0:14:19.280 of my grandfather, first then land was discovered on which 0:14:19.480 --> 0:14:20.600 the freedom was built. 0:14:21.800 --> 0:14:25.040 I met Vasili at his lawyer's office in Midtown Manhattan. 0:14:25.480 --> 0:14:28.400 He greeted me warmly and even gave me two books 0:14:28.400 --> 0:14:30.320 about his grandfather. We come. 0:14:30.760 --> 0:14:32.520 I just landed yesterday. 0:14:32.640 --> 0:14:35.720 Oh my gosh, for you, the books. Oh thank you. 0:14:36.640 --> 0:14:40.080 Vasili says his grandfather created the statue in the early 0:14:40.160 --> 0:14:44.280 nineteen nineties to celebrate the five hundredth anniversary of columbus 0:14:44.320 --> 0:14:48.800 arrival to the Americas. He says it was his hardest project. 0:14:49.520 --> 0:14:53.000 To Columbus was a difficult monument. It's a very difficult 0:14:54.240 --> 0:14:58.120 monument to create and to place it. 0:14:58.840 --> 0:15:01.320 I ask, Vasili said it Telly. If he thinks his 0:15:01.440 --> 0:15:05.200 grandfather would have built the monument today, probably not. 0:15:05.920 --> 0:15:08.320 It's a different world. At that time, it was five 0:15:08.360 --> 0:15:12.000 hundred anniversary to celebrate the United States. Whole United States 0:15:12.040 --> 0:15:16.200 was celebrating, and you have to understand also from where 0:15:16.240 --> 0:15:20.760 we are coming from. It's an artist Georgian creating a 0:15:20.880 --> 0:15:24.800 monument in Soviet Union where you could not envision of 0:15:24.920 --> 0:15:30.680 traveling anywhere. So Columbus, for many of people who were 0:15:31.240 --> 0:15:35.520 deprived of traveling, deprived of thinking of new ideas, and 0:15:35.560 --> 0:15:37.560 everything was a symbol of something new. 0:15:38.720 --> 0:15:42.240 After he created the statue Zurapse, Telli needed a home 0:15:42.280 --> 0:15:45.560 for it, and that turned out to be much harder 0:15:45.600 --> 0:15:51.560 than he anticipated. He envisioned this statue in Roosevelt Island 0:15:51.600 --> 0:15:54.640 in New York City, but there wasn't enough local support 0:15:54.680 --> 0:16:00.320 to make that happen. Other cities weren't interested either, including Columbus, Ohio, Myami, 0:16:00.400 --> 0:16:04.560 and Boston. The governor of Puerto Rico accepted the statue 0:16:04.560 --> 0:16:07.680 as a gift in nineteen ninety eight. They spent more 0:16:07.720 --> 0:16:10.400 than two million dollars in public funds to bring it 0:16:10.440 --> 0:16:14.880 to the island. They hoped it would attract tourists. It 0:16:14.960 --> 0:16:17.240 was supposed to go to a suburb of the capital 0:16:17.280 --> 0:16:20.680 of San Juan, but local people protested and a new 0:16:20.720 --> 0:16:25.120 mayor came in, so the gigantic bronze pieces went into 0:16:25.280 --> 0:16:32.360 storage for sixteen years. In twenty fourteen, Jose Gonzales, fred 0:16:32.520 --> 0:16:36.520 who's a local businessman, decided to install the statue on 0:16:36.560 --> 0:16:40.440 his private land in Arecibo. His plan was to develop 0:16:40.480 --> 0:16:45.240 a park and other attractions around it. Serratelli says Gonzales 0:16:45.280 --> 0:16:50.120 and his grandfather financed the installation together. They spent almost 0:16:50.200 --> 0:16:54.720 twenty million dollars, and in twenty sixteen, Birth of the 0:16:54.800 --> 0:16:59.280 New World was inaugurated. Ingrid Rivera was the head of 0:16:59.320 --> 0:17:02.680 the government aid agency in charge of tourism in Puerto Rico. 0:17:02.760 --> 0:17:09.960 Then we're talking about the tallest structure in the Americas, 0:17:10.280 --> 0:17:13.280 and that will make people want to visit it, she says. 0:17:13.920 --> 0:17:17.879 Even after the statue finally went up, the turmoil around 0:17:17.880 --> 0:17:22.240 it continued. In twenty nineteen, set Telis sued the owner 0:17:22.280 --> 0:17:25.120 of the land. He said people were climbing on top 0:17:25.160 --> 0:17:29.359 of the statue. The party is eventually settled, and that's 0:17:29.400 --> 0:17:32.800 when the fence was built around it. The park and 0:17:32.840 --> 0:17:39.560 other attractions still haven't been built. This is not the 0:17:39.600 --> 0:17:43.120 first time that Zuran s Telli's work has been tangled 0:17:43.160 --> 0:17:47.960 in controversy. His massive statue of the Russians are Peter 0:17:48.080 --> 0:17:53.960 the Great in downtown Moscow is overwhelmingly disliked says Alex Rodriguez. 0:17:54.720 --> 0:17:58.199 Rodriguez was the Russian correspondent of the Chicago Tribune and 0:17:58.320 --> 0:18:01.320 is now on its editorial board. He got a rare 0:18:01.440 --> 0:18:04.600 increase in interview with Sir Robsa. Tella in two thousand 0:18:04.600 --> 0:18:09.359 and five. Rodriguez asked him directly to respond to his critics. 0:18:09.960 --> 0:18:12.520 The way they refer to it was he had a 0:18:12.560 --> 0:18:16.480 conveyor belt approach to art, just churning it out rather 0:18:16.560 --> 0:18:20.480 than focusing on meaning, on something to say on quality. 0:18:20.920 --> 0:18:24.080 His answer was something akin to Goya or Donna, Tello 0:18:24.400 --> 0:18:28.200 or Michaelangelo. Would you ask the same question to them? 0:18:28.520 --> 0:18:31.400 So he was equating himself with some of the great 0:18:31.440 --> 0:18:33.280 artists in history. 0:18:33.320 --> 0:18:36.760 Still, his sculptures are displayed in places like the United 0:18:36.920 --> 0:18:39.960 Nations in New York City and also in London, Rome 0:18:40.119 --> 0:18:45.400 and Tokyo. Rodriguez says that's because of his wealth and connections. 0:18:45.840 --> 0:18:50.480 He early on was able to find friends in high places, 0:18:50.520 --> 0:18:54.440 in powerful places, and that's how he rose up the ranks. 0:18:54.680 --> 0:18:57.679 So if people with a lot of power and money 0:18:58.160 --> 0:19:01.080 like the art that you create, regardless of what the 0:19:01.119 --> 0:19:04.200 masses think, you're going to go places and your art's 0:19:04.200 --> 0:19:07.680 going to be paid for and commonly displayed. 0:19:07.920 --> 0:19:10.880 In the case of Birth of the New World. Arecibo 0:19:11.040 --> 0:19:15.639 is not exactly a prominent location, but Julian Go isn't 0:19:15.680 --> 0:19:18.840 surprised to find a Columbus statue in Puerto Rico. 0:19:19.680 --> 0:19:24.920 Everywhere across the colonial world, monuments go up to the colonizers. 0:19:25.520 --> 0:19:28.560 He's a professor of sociology at the University of Chicago 0:19:28.720 --> 0:19:33.399 who studies empires and colonialism. He says, it's unfortunate to 0:19:33.480 --> 0:19:38.360 have this symbol of imperialism here. Let's consider Puerto Rico's 0:19:38.440 --> 0:19:42.440 status as an American territory and the history that led 0:19:42.520 --> 0:19:47.520 up to this. Columbus opened the door. Then, for over 0:19:47.640 --> 0:19:50.880 four hundred years, Puerto Rico was a colony of Spain, 0:19:51.400 --> 0:19:54.680 like most of Latin America, but while other countries in 0:19:54.760 --> 0:19:58.800 the region became independent, Puerto Rico didn't. When the Spanish 0:19:58.840 --> 0:20:02.479 American War ended in eighteen ninety eight, the US took it, 0:20:02.720 --> 0:20:07.159 along with Spain's other possessions, the Philippines and wamp Go 0:20:07.480 --> 0:20:11.359 says when the US first took over, it promised to 0:20:11.480 --> 0:20:14.880 shape its new colonies in America's image. 0:20:15.400 --> 0:20:19.400 There was a sort of pretext of helping Puerto Ricans 0:20:19.440 --> 0:20:23.400 and Filipinos learn how to become one day self governing, 0:20:23.840 --> 0:20:25.840 and so they let them have elections, they let them 0:20:25.880 --> 0:20:29.320 whole political office. But again the Americans controlled and made 0:20:29.320 --> 0:20:30.760 all final decisions. 0:20:31.520 --> 0:20:35.200 Today, Puerto Rico is a US territory, but Go says 0:20:35.480 --> 0:20:37.240 that term is misleading. 0:20:37.800 --> 0:20:40.159 I do think Puerto Rico has the status of a 0:20:40.200 --> 0:20:43.760 colony or a quasi colony. There are a whole series 0:20:43.800 --> 0:20:47.879 of privileges and rights that Puerto Ricans are denied. I mean, officially, 0:20:48.080 --> 0:20:50.119 if you are a Puerto Rican resident, you can't vote for 0:20:50.160 --> 0:20:52.080 the president. For the president can send you to war. 0:20:52.960 --> 0:20:57.120 Puerto Rico is neither an American state nor an independent country. 0:20:57.600 --> 0:21:00.919 Puerto Ricans are US citizens, but they don't have representation 0:21:01.040 --> 0:21:05.720 in Congress. Essentially, it's still under imperial control. According to Go, 0:21:06.760 --> 0:21:09.760 Congress is once again discussing a new bill to the 0:21:09.840 --> 0:21:14.439 side Puerto Rico's status, with the debate between statehood and 0:21:14.520 --> 0:21:19.600 independent swirling. Historian Aura Hirau says Puerto Ricans are seeing 0:21:19.640 --> 0:21:22.800 their history and people like Columbus in a much more 0:21:22.840 --> 0:21:23.639 critical way. 0:21:24.520 --> 0:21:27.520 People are beginning to like say, like, oh, Christopher Columbus 0:21:27.840 --> 0:21:31.520 was not a good person. He helped exterminate our indigenous people. 0:21:31.960 --> 0:21:35.560 So it's very ironic that right when that conversation is shifting, 0:21:35.600 --> 0:21:42.280 they bring that monument here. 0:21:43.359 --> 0:21:47.360 And so a monument to imperialism stands in a small 0:21:47.440 --> 0:21:52.680 town in Puerto Rico, looming over a de facto American colony. 0:21:54.040 --> 0:21:57.919 When we come back, Giselli Reggaetau continues her story on 0:21:58.000 --> 0:21:59.360 the myth of Columbus. 0:22:00.240 --> 0:22:04.920 Columbus could almost be seen as a kind of ancestor 0:22:05.040 --> 0:22:10.800 figure justifying the American colonization of Puerto Rico in the 0:22:10.840 --> 0:22:14.280 eighteen nineties, sort of like the story of colonization coming 0:22:14.359 --> 0:22:15.520 around full circle. 0:22:16.480 --> 0:22:20.240 That's next on Monumental from PRX back in a moment. 0:22:33.440 --> 0:22:36.720 Columbus landed in Puerto Rico on his second trip in 0:22:36.800 --> 0:22:40.440 fourteen ninety three, but he never set foot on the mainland. 0:22:41.320 --> 0:22:44.719 So why has he been portrayed in so many statues 0:22:44.760 --> 0:22:49.760 throughout the country and why are there about five thousand streets, buildings, 0:22:49.800 --> 0:22:53.879 and schools named after Columbus, including the country's capital, the 0:22:53.920 --> 0:22:55.080 District of Columbia. 0:22:56.000 --> 0:22:58.840 I think Columbus was chosen simply because he was seen 0:22:58.880 --> 0:22:59.320 as the. 0:22:59.240 --> 0:23:03.360 First That's Kirk Savage, a professor of history of art, 0:23:03.400 --> 0:23:06.320 and Architecture at the University of Pittsburgh. 0:23:06.880 --> 0:23:11.080 That idea that Columbus was the discoverer, I think is 0:23:11.119 --> 0:23:16.040 what made him the key figure, because the doctrine of 0:23:16.080 --> 0:23:21.479 discovery was so important both legally and ideologically that it 0:23:21.520 --> 0:23:24.960 was enshrined in a Supreme Court decision in eighteen twenty three. 0:23:25.600 --> 0:23:29.240 That was the Supreme Court ruling determining that Native Americans 0:23:29.320 --> 0:23:30.800 do not own land. 0:23:31.600 --> 0:23:38.040 The doctrine of discovery gave the discoverer the ownership rights, 0:23:38.440 --> 0:23:42.800 and that the Native peoples who lived there only occupied 0:23:42.800 --> 0:23:45.159 the land, they didn't own it. You know, the United 0:23:45.160 --> 0:23:51.760 States saw itself as the inheritor of that right of 0:23:51.840 --> 0:23:56.000 conquest through discovery, through Columbus's discovery. 0:23:56.160 --> 0:23:59.960 Savage says. The first Columbus statue was installed in eighteen 0:24:00.040 --> 0:24:04.159 forty four. He was commissioned by the US Congress. It 0:24:04.240 --> 0:24:09.000 featured Columbus with a semi nude woman below him. She 0:24:09.080 --> 0:24:10.840 represented Native Americans. 0:24:11.880 --> 0:24:19.119 Very racist, very problematic, overtly racist statue that depicted Columbus 0:24:19.119 --> 0:24:22.359 as the kind of white man, you know, striding forward 0:24:22.440 --> 0:24:26.200 to the globe in his hand, while this representation of 0:24:26.240 --> 0:24:30.600 the Native people's just cowers below him without any agency. 0:24:31.119 --> 0:24:35.720 That was on the Capitol steps for over a century. 0:24:36.320 --> 0:24:40.040 The statue was in a place of high visibility for 0:24:40.080 --> 0:24:43.159 more than one hundred years. It was the backdrop for 0:24:43.280 --> 0:24:48.720 Presidentcinagro addresses. Then one day it was gone. 0:24:49.480 --> 0:24:51.320 As far as I know, that was the first up 0:24:51.720 --> 0:24:57.920 in the first down. It was removed in nineteen fifty eight, 0:24:58.440 --> 0:25:04.160 ostensibly because they were renovating the Capitol steps. They never 0:25:04.200 --> 0:25:07.960 put this one back because there had been many complaints 0:25:08.000 --> 0:25:13.240 about it from the National Congress of American Indians. They 0:25:13.359 --> 0:25:16.480 complained about it enough that eventually in fifty eight they 0:25:16.560 --> 0:25:19.240 just decided it wasn't worth putting back up, and it's 0:25:19.280 --> 0:25:22.520 been in storage ever since. It's literally never been seen 0:25:22.640 --> 0:25:24.080 publicly since that time. 0:25:26.160 --> 0:25:29.480 In nineteen ninety two, as the US celebrated five hundred 0:25:29.560 --> 0:25:34.560 years of Columbus's arrival on the continent, indigenous groups protested 0:25:34.640 --> 0:25:45.280 against those celebrations and against Columbus statues. But Catherine Dignisio 0:25:45.400 --> 0:25:49.320 points out the opposition to Columbus started way before that. 0:25:50.359 --> 0:25:54.480 He has been challenged since the very beginning, and in 0:25:54.480 --> 0:25:58.720 fact even by people on his own boat. Though Bartolome 0:25:58.840 --> 0:26:03.200 de las Casas is a religious figure who's traveling with Columbus, 0:26:03.200 --> 0:26:07.679 who ended up detailing his accounts of Columbus's barbarism, and 0:26:07.720 --> 0:26:11.760 that's how we know about the violence that was actually perpetrated. 0:26:11.800 --> 0:26:16.639 So even his own people did not revere Columbus and 0:26:16.680 --> 0:26:20.040 did not universally think he was such a great, awesome 0:26:20.160 --> 0:26:21.080 founder of anything. 0:26:21.720 --> 0:26:25.760 Dignizio is an associate professor of Urban Science and Planning 0:26:25.800 --> 0:26:30.280 at MIT. She also directs their Data plus Feminism Lab. 0:26:30.760 --> 0:26:34.320 In twenty twenty one, the lab created a zine challenging 0:26:34.359 --> 0:26:39.040 the greatness of Columbus. It's called we Never Wanted Him Here. 0:26:39.800 --> 0:26:43.800 But her questioning of the Columbus mystique is personal as well. 0:26:44.560 --> 0:26:48.520 I am of Italian American descent. My grandfather was Italian, 0:26:49.040 --> 0:26:52.320 and so Columbus is a figure I've always had mixed 0:26:52.359 --> 0:26:53.159 feelings about. 0:26:53.880 --> 0:26:56.840 Kirk Savage from the University of Pittsburgh says in the 0:26:56.920 --> 0:27:01.159 nineteen hundreds, Italian Americans and organizations like the Knights of 0:27:01.200 --> 0:27:05.200 Columbus played a key role in making statues of Columbus 0:27:05.280 --> 0:27:06.480 even more popular. 0:27:07.200 --> 0:27:09.720 The fact that there are hundreds around the world is 0:27:09.880 --> 0:27:13.120 almost completely owing to the fact that Italian immigrants took 0:27:13.160 --> 0:27:15.879 over this symbol and pushed it as a symbol of 0:27:15.920 --> 0:27:19.720 their own heritage. What I think is important to stress, though, 0:27:20.520 --> 0:27:24.600 is that they adopted Columbus because he was already an 0:27:24.680 --> 0:27:29.040 important figure in White American mythology. 0:27:29.960 --> 0:27:33.920 In nineteen thirty seven, the Knights of Columbus successfully lobbied 0:27:34.000 --> 0:27:38.639 President Franklin Roosevelt to make Columbus Day a national holiday. 0:27:39.480 --> 0:27:42.760 Here he's celebrating the day in one of his radio addresses. 0:27:42.840 --> 0:27:44.160 During World War Two. 0:27:44.880 --> 0:27:48.360 Christopher Columbus oo the aid of Spain. 0:27:48.160 --> 0:27:49.680 Opened up a new world. 0:27:50.080 --> 0:27:54.360 We have freedom, tolerance, and respect for human rights, and 0:27:54.400 --> 0:27:58.159 dignity provided in asylum for the oppressed. 0:27:57.680 --> 0:27:58.520 Of the old world. 0:28:00.440 --> 0:28:04.000 Dignesia says, when she was growing up, her grandfather was 0:28:04.200 --> 0:28:08.199 very proud of Columbus, and she understands the importance of 0:28:08.240 --> 0:28:08.920