The Trump administration placed a statue of Christopher Columbus on White House grounds over the weekend, doubling down on its efforts to commemorate the 15th-century explorer.
"As we celebrate our Nation's 250th anniversary of independence, the White House is proud to honor Christopher Columbus's legendary life and legacy with a well-deserved statue on the White House grounds," Davis Ingle, a White House spokesperson, said in a statement. "In this White House, Christopher Columbus is a hero, and President Trump will ensure he's honored as such for generations to come."
The statue is a replica of the one that used to sit in Baltimore's Little Italy, according to John Pica, a Maryland lobbyist and president of the Italian American Organizations United. In 2020, after the killing of George Floyd by a white police officer and a reckoning on racial justice issues in the U.S., protesters pulled the statue down and hurled it into the city's Inner Harbor.
The marble statue depicted Columbus facing east towards the sun, and was dedicated by former Baltimore Mayor William Donald Schaefer and President Ronald Reagan in October 1984.
Soon after, Pica, who also has served as a Maryland state senator, said his group hired divers to fish pieces of the statue out of the harbor. They raised money through grants and private contributions to hire a Maryland sculptor to rebuild it, Pica said.
The replica had been finished for a few years and sat in storage until Pica got a call last week that the White House wanted the statue. The statue was installed around 2 a.m. Sunday morning, he said, and it is on loan to the White House until the end of Trump's term.
"It's a place where it can peacefully shine and be protected," he added.
"It's a source of pride for Italian Americans," Pica said. "Christopher Columbus, notwithstanding the controversy around him, is a symbol of pride and adventure for Italian Americans."
Pica said he understands the hesitancy around Columbus' legacy. In a way, he said, Italian Americans are "stuck" with Columbus.
"We don't raise a glass of wine to Christopher Columbus on Columbus Day," Pica said. "We celebrate our heritage. We don't have Columbus celebrations. We have Italian American celebrations and Italian heritage celebrations. It's just Columbus happens to be the symbol."
The statue is not the administration's first attempt to shine a favorable light on the controversial figure.
Last year, the Trump administration issued a proclamation commemorating Columbus Day, and took a jab at people who have criticized the explorer.
"Outrageously, in recent years, Christopher Columbus has been a prime target of a vicious and merciless campaign to erase our history, slander our heroes, and attack our heritage," the proclamation read. "Before our very eyes, left-wing radicals toppled his statues, vandalized his monuments, tarnished his character, and sought to exile him from our public spaces."
Indigenous Peoples' Day, which is not an official federal holiday but is celebrated by cities and states across the country, previously had been recognized by the Biden administration.
Members of the public offer mixed reactions to the statue
On Monday morning, groups of schoolchildren, tourists and locals passed by the White House and offered differing opinions of the statue.
The statue wasn't visible to the public because of construction and fences walling off the area. But when Ivone Sagastume, a first-generation Guatemalan American, heard about the new statue, she was brought to tears. To her, she said, the statue is another way the Trump administration is dividing the country.
"We as a nation have fought for unity and for respect of other cultures," Sagastume, 35, said. "That symbol is just going to destroy that even more, it's just destroying what this country was built on."
Gerald Horne, a professor of history and African American studies at the University of Houston, said that reaction to the statue makes sense.
"Statues are political statements and those who have objected to the statue of Christopher Columbus are objecting to his role in helping to ignite genocide against the Indigenous population, of being an enslaver himself," Horne said.
Middle school history teacher Scott Silk, 57, looked out at the White House with a group of students from San Diego behind him.
"For so many people in the United States, Christopher Columbus is a symbol of racism and the oppression of native peoples," he said.
He said if he and his students could see the statue, he would ask them to reflect on what it means.
But others, like Martha Castillo, a tourist from San Diego, Calif., said it's important to remember American history.
"I think it's a good idea to have it here," Castillo, 55, said. "This is a historic place and I think it should be here in the White House."
Peter Diaz, 47, traveled from Miami, Fla. to explore the city's capital. Diaz said the country has "bigger problems" than a statue.
"How many statues do we have in every city? In every state?" he said. "Are those really the issues that we care about? Don't you think we have to think about our kids?"
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