CSJ Updates

August 2025

1) Winners for this year's Columbus Award have been selected.
One of the winners was Nicholas Scirica and his mom, Antonietta, is a member of our Lodge!
We will be presenting him with this award at our next monthly meeting on August 19th. If you
would like to see the winning essays and video from this year's award ceremony please visit the
following link: http://nyscsj.org/2025columbusaward.html

2) In the fight against Cancel Culture, the NYS CSJ and the Native American Guardian Association (NAGA) are helping the Massapequa school district retain it’s Chiefs moniker and logo, in its fight to preserve the Massapequa Chief mascot. The town is now asking its biggest backer — President Trump — to sign an executive order to safe-guard Native American names and images across the US. In the past NAGA has been a supporter for Columbus Day and believes many falsehoods are being spread about the brave explorer in an attempt to cancel the American
holiday.

3) NYC Mayoral front runner, Zohran Mamdani, has proudly professed his mission to take down Columbus statues. The socialist is no supporter of Columbus Day and in a social media post from2020 that reads "Take it down", Mamdani is seen giving the middle finger to the back of the tower-ing Christopher Columbus figure in Astoria, which is part of his state Assembly district. NYS CSJChairman John Fratta has sent a letter to Mamdani's office professing our stance on this matter.