California lawmakers are pushing for a new paid holiday for Native American Day
California may soon add another paid holiday to state workers as lawmakers seek to officially recognize Native American Day, a move supporters say is directly related to the state’s violent history toward indigenous peoples and an apology by Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2019 for what he called “genocide.”
The proposal, authored by Assemblyman James Ramos, D-Highland, cleared a major hurdle last week when the Assembly Appropriations Committee unanimously approved a measure to make Native American Day a fully paid national holiday on the fourth Friday in September.
Ramos, the first Native American elected to the California Legislature, said the bill is meant to address the country’s darkness and respect California’s tribal communities.
“Most Californians know little about the bloody history that shaped this state,” Ramos said in a statement. “They symbolize the sending of love, the Gold Rush, the Transcontinental Railroad, not the genocide, violence, enslavement, and dispossession of Native Americans.”
The push comes six years after Newsom issued an official apology to Native Americans on behalf of California and signed an executive order establishing a Truth and Remedies Council to examine the history of tribal communities’ treatment.
During his remarks at the time, Newsom said the atrocities against Native Americans amounted to “genocide.”
“California needs to consider our dark history,” Newsom said in 2019. “California’s Native Americans have faced state-sanctioned violence, discrimination and exploitation throughout their history.”
California is currently home to more than 100 officially recognized tribes.
Historians estimate that the Aboriginal population in the region exceeded 300,000 before European settlement expanded to the region in the late 18th century.
According to the California Native American Heritage Commission, disease and settler violence devastated those communities in the years that followed.
Ramos noted that between 1851 and 1859, the Governor of the State of California paid $1.3 million for military expeditions against Native Americans.
Former Gov. Peter Burnett described the campaigns as a “war of extermination”.
“And that number does not begin to capture the loss of life, the enslavement of Native families, the destruction of sacred sites and cultural objects, the overcrowding of their lands, and the other great atrocities committed against the First Peoples of California,” Ramos said.
Native American Day is already recognized as a special holiday for national workers, along with festivals such as Diwali, Juneteenth, Lunar New Year and Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Ramos’ law would extend it to the calendar for statutory paid holidays as well as Christmas, Thanksgiving and Independence Day.
This year, the holiday falls on September 25.
A legal analysis estimates that additional paid vacation would cost California about $16.3 million annually.
The proposal would only go into effect if the California Department of Labor determines the state has enough funding and reaches agreements with labor unions.
SEIU Local 1000, which represents nearly 100,000 workers, supported the move, arguing that California must fully embrace its history before confronting modern inequality.
