Donna Ingima
“My older sister and I would go to her house on Saturdays and vacuum her rugs. Nana made a game of it. Each section of the house from the entryway to the bedrooms were parts of a meal. The entryway was a salad, the living room was the “spaghett and meat-a balls,” the dining room was the vegetables, and so on. Nana liked to sing Volare as it was in Italian, and she also sang a song to my father..… “Lazy bum-may, how you speck-y gett-y your work-y done-nay, sit-dy in da noon-a day sun-na, Lazy Bum-may” and then they would laugh. I remember lots of laughter.
I moved back to Syracuse and immediately became aware of the years-long movement to remove the Columbus statue. In my opinion, it’s time to move the statue to another home. Syracuse is built on land that belonged to the Onondagas. A monument honoring the Haudenosaunee Confederacy would serve this city, Native Peoples and our nation with an enduring respect. We are living in a historic change cycle and although it’s deeply uncomfortable and confusing, it’s also imperative for our society to embrace the social justice course corrections that are so overdue.”