DIA DE LA RAZA

Today, October 12, “Race Day” or “Day of the Encounter between Two Cultures”
is commemorated, in memory of the sighting of land by the sailor Rodrigo de
Triana in 1492, after having sailed for more than two months in command. from
Christopher Columbus to what would later be called America.

“Columbus Day” is also called the Fiesta de la Hispanidad, and was instituted to
contribute to the unity of peoples who have language, religion, race and culture
in common.

“Columbus Day” is celebrated on October 12 in most of Latin America, in Spain

and in the United States among other countries.

It was created in the 20th century, initially spontaneously and unofficially, to

commemorate a new cultural identity, a product of the encounter and fusion
between the indigenous peoples of America and the Spanish colonizers, in
addition to the valorization of the Latin American cultural heritage.
 On October 12, 1492, the sailor Rodrigo
de Triana sighted Earth. This event
changed the conception of the planet
and caused something that not even
Columbus had imagined: the union of
two worlds.

The meeting of these two cultures

allowed America to receive a great
cultural legacy, of advances and artistic
expressions not only Western but also
Eastern, and for Europe to perceive the
cultural wealth, advances, ingenuity and art of the New World.

In the 19th century, when the fourth centenary of the discovery was celebrated,
a royal decree signed in the Rábida monastery on October 12, 1892 (under the
regency of Doña María Cristina de Habsburg) expressed the clear purpose of
establishing as a national holiday the anniversary of the day Columbus's caravels
arrived in the Indies.