 Throughout history, people have done horrible things to other people with permanent consequences that cannot be undone. One way we heal is through somber remembrance of the past combined with optimistic appreciation of the present and celebrating our hope for the future. We do this on anniversaries like Pearl Harbor Day or 911 or more positively on Juneteenth Independence Day and observances like Memorial Day. Indigenous People's Day is just such a holiday. The purpose of this article is to update the town's holiday list in accordance with the select board's proclamation on January 25th, changing Columbus Day to Indigenous People's Day. The observance of Indigenous People's Day would not add a new holiday for observation by town employees. Rather, for employee purposes, it would stand in the place of any state or federal observance of Columbus Day. However, because the two celebrations are antithetical to each other, given the harm done to Indigenous Peoples by Columbus's regime, it is important that this be a complete changeover, not a dual holiday. Thank you. My name is Danielle Cost and I'm here as your neighbor to share my perspective about Columbus Day. And as you can see, it's very personal. As Drake mentioned, I'm Algonquin. I'm an enrolled member at the Kitigan ZV First Nation in Canada. My mother and family still live on the reservation where I spent much of my childhood. First Nations are what Indigenous Peoples are called in Canada as the first people on this land. And by land, I mean even here in Arlington, where I'm now living and raising my two children. Tonight, I'm asking you, sorry, in our community, to think about what it means to be Native American, to fight to be seen in a world that has been trying to erase you for more than 500 years, to live in a society that thinks it's honoring you with sports mascots, and instead of giving you basic respect, to have to seek recognition and validation for your very existence. And most of all, I would like to share my family story. And the pain that we suffered at the hands of Canada's Indian residential school system, which was a government effort to assimilate Native children. They happened not only in Canada, but in the US too. In 1955, the government forcibly removed my mother and her siblings from their parents and sent them 1,100 miles away. They were among thousands of Native kids who were systematically stripped of their identities, their religion, their language, and their family structures were broken. And they were severely abused and neglected. My mom was four when she was taken, I mean, which is two years younger than my daughter, which just blows my mind, and she was gone for 10 years. But she's one of the lucky ones because hundreds of children didn't survive. As my mother's daughter, I feel compelled to share her story because many people aren't aware of this history. And they're always shocked that it happened not that long ago. And some might, some listening tonight might think I'm sorry that this happened to your family, but what does it have to do with marking Columbus Day in Arlington? And it's this, recognizing Indigenous Peoples' Day is a step toward healing for Native people. It's a meaningful acknowledgement not only of our history on this land here in Arlington, but our fight to be seen as people today. Thank you. Columbus Day has been celebrated since the 1800s. It was put forward at a time when a lot of national U.S. myths were being put forward. You know, we have a lot of myths in this country such as George that some of us grew up with such as George Washington never told a lie about the pilgrims coming here to Massachusetts. And Columbus was part of that too. And it was a myth intended to create a sense of national unity among white people. Certainly it was excluding everyone else. And then it was embraced by some Italian immigrants in the 1900s as a sign of pride and especially as a way of showing that they were American too. At a time when Italian Americans were in fact facing a lot of discrimination, facing a lot of prejudice as recent immigrants and as being considered at that time, not now, but at that time as being less than white as well. You know, in facing a lot of discrimination. So they embraced it and it became a federal holiday. The problem with that like so many of these national myths is that it number one ignored the history. A lot of the history about Columbus was not known at that time, but we do know the truth now and we've known the truth for a very long time. And indigenous people in particular have known the truth for much longer because it's something that, you know, we've always been very clear that we had civilization and we had spirituality. And we never needed to be discovered by anybody and Columbus wasn't an uninvited guest. And unfortunately, like there's so many other elements of national mythologies that excludes indigenous and black and other people. And, you know, I think now in 2021, we're all sufficiently conscious to know that we need to get rid of that sort of thing. And that ends with education. We need to educate ourselves about the indigenous population, people of color. And not just, you know, this generic education, I mean, really get into it. Reach out to the indigenous populations. We're here. It's not like we went anywhere all around you learn about us. Understand us understand what we went through and create a relationship with us. The Massachusetts tribe desires a relationship with all the towns in our territory, all the cities and towns within our territory. We desire this relationship because we think it's important that the residents and the people of this area are included, meet and know the Massachusetts people who they are today and who they were so they can be better informed and they can understand what we went through so they can understand why we feel the way we feel today. And it all begins with a relationship that we need to reestablish. So we're here. Reach out, we're always willing to meet and talk. Always, we're always willing to come and help anything you need. We'll try to help you do it. Educate the children. Because we are like I said before we all need to heal and it starts with the relationship so we need to have a better relationship with each other. And we need to stop the cycle of hate that really is playing both of our communities.