Will Los Angeles do away with Columbus Day and celebrate Indigenous Peoples Day instead?

That’s the question the L.A. City Council will be asked today, as the panel considers abandoning Columbus Day, which is observed on the second Monday of October. The proposal calls for the city to instead observe Indigenous Peoples Day, which celebrates the culture and contributions of the Native American community.

If approved, the move would put Los Angeles on a list of cities that have chosen to stop observing a holiday that recognizes Christopher Columbus, a European explorer long credited as being the person who discovered the Americas.

That role has been questioned through the years, and for many Native Americans, Columbus serves as a painful reminder of injustices inflicted onto their ancestors, and a dismissal of people who were already living on the American continents prior to the explorer’s arrival.

• RELATED STORY: LA leaders explore replacing Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples Day

Councilman Mitch O’Farrell, who is a member of the Wyandotte Nation, first proposed shelving Columbus Day in Los Angeles nearly two years ago. He says the holiday celebrates a man who represents a “pretty bloody” history in which Columbus personally took part in enslaving the indigenous peoples he encountered, as well as indirectly opened the door to a significant portion of the Native American population being wiped out by disease and persecution.

“It’s a hollow, archaic holiday,” O’Farrell said. “The truth is everywhere about the historical record and what happened.”

O’Farrell likened the holiday to “strange symbols” such as the Confederate flags and statues that have been accused of being revisionist in recent years.

Columbus Day is a federal holiday, so if the City Council approves the proposal today, the observance would only be changed for city employees.

The city could potentially establish Indigenous Peoples Day in time to have it replace Columbus Day this October. But city officials would actually have until 2019 to make the necessary changes, under the proposal.

O’Farrell’s proposal has been met with opposition from some in the Italian-American community, and the Catholic organization, Knights of Columbus, who were among the biggest supporters for establishing the federal holiday. Some who admire Columbus also say the Italian explorer is being mischaracterized and was not responsible for the atrocities often attributed to him.

Councilman Joe Buscaino, who is of Italian heritage, is among those on the City Council who have been the most vocally against the plan.

“In Councilman O’Farrell’s proposal, Italians feel excluded,” said Branimir Kvartuc, an aide to Buscaino.

Buscaino is planning to introduce an amendment today to schedule Indigenous Peoples Day for Aug. 9, and replace Columbus Day with a day that would celebrate all cultures, Kvartuc said.

He said the councilman no longer supports a holiday that recognizes Columbus, but explained that the holiday has been meaningful to Italian-Americans because it gave many in that community a sense of pride at a time when they were being discriminated against.

The movement to switch the focus of Columbus began in Berkeley, the first city to adopt Indigenous Peoples Day in protest against Christopher Columbus. Other cities such as Santa Cruz, Seattle, Denver, Anchorage and Portland, Ore., soon followed.

Los Angeles would likely be the most populous city in the nation to do it, according to O’Farrell.

Within Los Angeles County, the city of San Fernando was the first to make the switch, taking action last year to observe Indigenous Peoples Day in place of Columbus Day.

But some say this movement to topple the holiday is misguided. Patrick S. Korten, a board member with the National Christopher Columbus Association Inc., which promotes the celebration of the holiday, said these efforts ignore Columbus’ “consequential” role in bringing together “two civilizations that knew nothing about each other.”

Korten dismissed the idea that Columbus enslaved the indigenous peoples he met, and said the explorer “is one of the most fascinating people that may have ever lived.”

“The Columbus encounter was the single most important event in human history,” he said.

“There are a lot of bumps in the road in the last several hundred years — nobody pretends otherwise,” he added. “The ultimate effect was to help us all learn together, despite a wide variety of cultures and backgrounds.”

Meanwhile, Arleta resident Raul Herrera said he supports replacing Columbus Day, pointing to his own “indigenous identity” connected to the Aztecs.

“I’m hoping this is going to be another step forward,” Herrera said. “I think that’s what we need to be able to do to no longer hide the history.”

He said he will be at City Hall during the council vote, dressed “in full regalia as an Aztec dancer,” and accompanied by his family “to let them know that we’re still here, regardless of 500 years of colonization — that we haven’t been wiped out.”

“We’re still holding firm to our indigenous identity, to our cultures and our traditions while we’re living in this beautiful country,” he said.