Columbus gets the finger. Other conquerors get a pass.

My paternal grandmother, Giuseppina Scianna, was born on October 12, 1893, in Lercara Friddi, Sicily. Grandma Josey, her mother, Rosa Barbusia, and two siblings came to America in 1910, hoping to reunite with their husband and father, Giuseppe Scianna, who had come to New York to build a better life for his family.

My grandmother spoke broken English, but I remember her telling me how proud she was to be an American because, in Lercara Friddi, people believed America’s streets were lined with gold. She was especially proud to have been born on Columbus Day. To her, Christopher Columbus represented the opening of a world that eventually gave her family a chance to thrive here.

If conquest itself is the indictment, history provides no shortage of defendants.