2024 Indigenous Peoples' Day festival shows Bay Area's early role in holiday

SAN FRANCISCO - Hundreds of people attended a festival marking Indigenous People's Day at San Francisco's Yerba Buena Gardens on Monday afternoon.

The festival started in 2018 when the city decided to rename Columbus Day, which falls on the same Monday in October.

A song in the Anishinaabe language called for blessings to open the festival, which has become an important tradition for many people who have felt marginalized.

Michael Andrews, who is a drummer with the All Nation Singers, said he used to come to the festival to hear his father perform.

"This day is really important because we used to say Christopher Columbus, someone who oppressed indigenous people," Andrews said, adding that it means a lot to be recognized, "Our First Nations people here have been in the background for a long time and just having a day when we feel acknowledged and can call our own."

San Francisco holds the celebration in partnership with the International Indian Treaty Council and other non-profits.

"The International Indian Treaty Council is a representative organization, so we have affiliates or members all the way from Alaska to Argentina all through the whole continent including here in California," said Andrea Carmen, Executive Director of the International Indian Treaty Council.

The festival is part of a daylong celebration that started with a 5 a.m. sunrise ceremony on Alcatraz Island, the site of the 1969 occupation by Native American activists fighting for indigenous rights.

"We had those occupiers and their family members on the island with us this morning to pay that honor and pay respect to the sacrifices that they made," said Morning Star Gali, who helped organize the event.

Shirley Guevara is a member of the Dunlap Tribe near Kings Canyon in California, and one of the protestors during the 1969 occupation of Alcatraz.

"We saw it on TV and I said I want to be a part of that," Guevara recalled.

The beginning of Indigenous Peoples' Day was in 1992, when the city of Berkeley first announced it would change the name from Columbus Day.  

The White House has now recognized both Columbus Day for Italian-Americans' heritage and Indigenous People's Day since 2021.

In his 2024 proclamation, President Biden recognized that Columbus Day's origin was meant to address discrimination against Italian Americans in the United States at the time.

"Columbus Day was founded by President Benjamin Harrison in 1892 in response to the horrific, xenophobic attack that took the lives of 11 Italian Americans the year before," the proclamation reads.

In the Indigenous People's Day proclamation, President Biden also recognized the importance of respecting and continuing to uplift indigenous people in the United States.

"We must honor the solemn promises the United States made to fulfill our trust and treaty obligations to Tribal Nations and work together to rebuild Tribal economies and institutions," President Biden's proclamation read.

The 2024 Indigenous People's Day festival featured more than 100 performers from ten groups, along with vendors from across the U.S.

"It's my first time here, and I thought it was really cool there are actually shops here," said Samara Roth, a San Francisco student who was with her father looking at the booths of clothing, artwork, and handmade goods.

Andrew Roth said he was glad to see more education and awareness of native cultures for younger generations.

"With my daughter, what they study in school about the Ohlone people and indigenous people in general, is more comprehensive than what I studied in school 40 years ago." Andrew Roth said.

"We are still participating in our language, our culture and our ceremonies, and we had a beautiful showing of that today," said Gali.

Jana Katsuyama is a reporter for KTVU. Email Jana at jana.katsuyama@fox.com. Call her at 510-326-5529. Or follow her on Twitter @JanaKTVU and read her other reports on her bio page.