Cristobal Colón and Cancel Culture in Contemporary Latin America

Misra, Amalendu (2021) Cristobal Colón and Cancel Culture in Contemporary Latin America. International Policy Digest, Richmond, Virginia.

Abstract

This year marks the 500th anniversary of the first European political settlement in the American landmass. Now Latin America is slowly turning against the legacy of the person who is credited with “discovering” the “new world” and in the process unwittingly opened the region to European cultural, economic, political, racial, and religious intervention. Revered for over half a millennia, as the pioneer who “discovered the new world,” Christopher Columbus’ legacy is now under attack on several fronts, and he stands being canceled altogether from the North and South America’s cultural landscape. What was once a rallying cry for Indigenous activists, who see Christopher Columbus as a symbol of European colonialism and oppression, is now becoming mainstream.