January 10, 2019

Hon. Al Baldasaro
Member, New Hampshire House of Representatives
41 Hall Road
Londonderry, NH 03053-2306

Dear Representative Baldasaro:

The Columbus Heritage Coalition applauds your stance on seeking to preserve the time-honored and cherished federal holiday of Columbus Day in the state of New Hampshire.

We formed our organization in 2017 in order to stop the baseless and unwarranted attacks on Christopher Columbus and the day that celebrates his accomplishments. In almost all cases, those who assail Columbus do so without the benefit of historical knowledge, much less historical context. Instead, they’ve opted to hop on a bandwagon of falsehoods driven by a sense of self-righteousness they feel entitles them to apply present-day standards to events that occurred 500 years ago.

Here in New York, we successfully campaigned to preserve the iconic statue of Columbus in Columbus Circle, and we are indebted to Gov. Cuomo for spearheading its inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places.

Italian Americans and all sensible and caring Americans need to unite to stop these attacks on our heritage. In almost all cases, attacks on Columbus emanate from those who owe their very existence in the Americas to him. Perhaps you can encourage your colleagues to review the situation in Framingham, Mass. where they recently voted to observe a combined holiday. It is not a perfect solution, because we believe indigenous people should have their own day celebrate, perhaps August 9 which is International Indigenous Peoples Day. The Columbus debate should have never been allowed to become an us-against-them scenario.

To that end, we are endeavoring to create a national organization that can respond to these issues, and we would welcome your input and participation.

Cordially,

Angelo Vivolo
President