Happy Columbus Day!

The concept of the long weekend has questionable meaning when you don’t really have a job, but everyone likes a holiday nonetheless. These days, Washigton, DC overwhelmingly presents itself to the world as a northeastern city rather than a southern one. Traditionally, however, that’s not been the case; a phenomenon which is represented on days like this one. Real northeastern cities — New York, Boston, Philadelphia, etc. — are all deeply marked by the legacy of “white ethnic” immigration from the pre-1920s era of high immigration. Cities like that, as a consequence, have genuine Irish-American traditions on St. Patrick’s Day and Italian-American ones on Columbus Day. But in a town that doesn’t have a Little Italy or a North End, Columbus Day signifies nothing.