Polish immigrants, once they came to America, also experienced lots of discrimination since their early arrival days in the 1880s and 1890s. My forefathers and mothers came from Poland, and two of their noted generals, Thaddeus Kosciuszko, who fought bravely in the American Revolution, helping America fight the British, and Casimir Pulaski, who came to the United States in 1777 to serve in Washington's army and helped form the American cavalry - both assisted this country during important times. They already get 12 days a year, like Columbus Day and Martin Luther King Day, and next year will get Juneteenth off also.Ĭouncil member Tom DuBois, who family roots are Italian, wants to have Italian Immigrants Day become a holiday, saying he recalled the discrimination that early Italian immigrants suffered in the United States. I can see city employees already salivating about more official holidays in this city – for which they get paid days off (so does the city manager and his entourage). The council is already considering commemorating days for the Holocaust and Armenian genocide, and they are ready to adopt policies to formally recognize Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta. Also, on the debate table is whether to change Columbus Day to Italian Immigrants Day (because Columbus was Italian, you know) - or decide maybe to combine Columbus and Indigenous Peoples Day into one October holiday, OR, two separate ones? The possibilities seem endless.īut, of course, there’s even more to consider. Top of the agenda is whether we still want to celebrate Columbus Day (you know, the man who discovered America) – or instead turn it into an “Indigenous Peoples” holiday. It’s become a smorgasbord of ideas about how many more official holidays our little city of 62,000 should celebrate in Palo Alto, and an item council members will deliberate at its Monday, Sept. I moved to Palo Alto in 1979, and have been involved in the community on several nonprofit boards. Born in a small community on Long Island, I attended Middlebury College, graduated from the University of Michigan, got married, had four boys in four years, and then started working. In the late 1990s, I sequentially wrote columns for all three local newspapers here in Palo Alto. I also worked for the State Bar of California as the first editor in chief of "California Lawyer" magazine, and then spent a decade at Stanford involved in public issues affecting the university.
I then went to the San Jose Mercury as an editorial writer and columnist.
I've been a journalist most of my life, first as a reporter and then managing editor of a Chicago newspaper, followed by a wonderful year at Stanford as a recipient of Knight Journalism Fellowship. My goal with this blog is to help the public better understand what really is happening, and more important, how residents living here may be affected by these local decisions. I know many residents care about this town, and I want to explore our collective interests to help do the right thing. In this blog I want to discuss all that with you. About this blog: So much is right - and wrong - about what is happening in Palo Alto.
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