The 8-foot statue of Christopher Columbus fronting a Chula Vista park is akin to having a Hitler statue in a Jewish community — “if not worse.” So said Benjamin Prado of Unión del Barrio after reading aloud a letter Saturday that local American Indian groups are sending to the Chula Vista City Council. They’re demanding the statue be removed.

“That is what it represents to us, and that is why it must come down,” Prado said at a morning ceremony in front of the spyglass-holding figure. Standing on a 10-foot granite pedestal near the entrance to Discovery Park, the bronze likeness of the Italian explorer represents “an affront to all native nations and all native peoples,” the indigenous peoples advocate said on a quiet day in the upscale Rancho del Rey neighborhood.