HispanicBusiness

The annual parade honoring Columbus Day in Denver is controversial every year, but the rancor surrounding this year's upcoming Saturday celebration seems to be hotter than usual.

Earlier this week, major news organizations in the area posted stories quoting a press release announcing that the 102nd annual event -- the oldest Columbus Day parade in the nation -- was canceled. The press release turned out to be a hoax. It included a phone number to a recorded voice message from a man falsely claiming to be the parade organizer.

Columbus Day -- which celebrates the anniversary of Italian-born Christopher Columbus's arrival in the United States on Oct. 12, 1492 -- is becoming an increasingly controversial holiday. Historians now believe Columbus enslaved, forcibly converted to Christianity and killed indigenous people in his quest for riches.

Native American groups have protested the Denver parade for decades, calling it a "celebration of genocide." Two years ago, 75 protesters were arrested after trying to block the parade.

On Friday, the parade organizer, Richard SaBell, the president of the Sons of Italy Columbus Day Parade Committee, told the Denver Daily News he felt "violated" by the hoax.

"Somebody impersonated me and tried to stop something that's very important to me, to my family and to my history," he said.

Meanwhile, the state of California is witnessing its own Columbus Day dustup, in the form of a convoluted union dispute between government workers and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Service Employees International Union Local 1000, which represents some state workers, has told employees Monday is a paid holiday, but Schwarzenegger disagrees, the Sacramento Bee reports. The conflict stems from a bill passed and signed in February eliminating Columbus Day and Lincoln's Birthday as paid holidays. In return, union workers were to get two days' worth of extra vacation time. But Republican lawmakers have yet to ratify the contract.