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My Thanksgiving Protest: History, Community, Gratitude

Posted on by Shanna S Mathews-Mendez

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My Thanksgiving Protest

Why would I stage a Thanksgiving protest? Thanksgiving has always been one of my favorite holidays. I love food. Cooking is one of my favorite pastimes. Parties at my house are quite regular. Seems like a no brainer then, right? Thanksgiving is the perfect holiday for me. At the same time, I am a woman who got her education in the study of minority cultures and literatures. I am an active resistor and agitator. I make a concerted effort, as a white woman of privilege, to listen to others’ experiences without justifications or explanations.

So I had some serious cognitive dissonance going on. I knew the Thanksgiving story I was fed as a child in school was a lie. Yet I continued to buy a Turkey, make stuffing, and put out a cornucopia, dried Indian corn and pumpkins in some sort of nod to Pilgrims and Indians. I finally came to terms with my own intentional disconnect this year, leading to my Thanksgiving protest. But it certainly was not planned. It all came together in a bizarre blend of outside and inside influences.

The Seed Is Planted

“Ugh,” My baby sister’s text reads. “I wish I could just stay home for Thanksgiving with my husband and eat tacos in my sweats.”  She sends me this message a couple weeks before Thanksgiving. It isn’t that she doesn’t love our family and her husband’s. It is just a lot of work to trek out to one household, eat, laugh, play with nieces and nephews, and then trek on over to another household to do the same, only to arrive home exhausted and drained from “family day.” I get it.

I don’t have that problem. I live hundreds of miles from my closest family members that don’t live with me, so I never worry about that. And I do love to cook. When she sent the message, I replied with a “haha. Poor thing,” and moved on. But the seed was planted.

“Why?” I wondered. “Why do we make such a fuss over this holiday? Why the turkey and mashed potatoes? Why the sweet potato pie?” And then all the falsehoods started bursting through my brain.

The Thanksgiving Story

The Pilgrims were indeed kind to the Native Americans. They did indeed get along when the Mayflower arrived. The Pilgrims needed the Wampanoags. Previous colonists had died, starved and frozen, unfamiliar with the territory and clueless as to how to survive. So the Pilgrims were kind in the way you are kind to people upon whom you depend. The Wampanoag tribes were generous, giving food and shelter, showing the Pilgrims how to plant and build fortifications. The story is as old as time. Kindness was mistaken for weakness.

Within a very short amount of time that early encounter led to King Philip’s War, which left thousands of butchered Native Americans, over land.

For no reason.

The hardest part of it all is that part.

For no reason.

There was plenty of land, there were plenty of resources, and there was abundant food. While you can argue that many Native Americans died because of small pox or other diseases they were exposed to by the colonists, not slaughtered, the Wampanoag tribes were murdered. 

Happy Thanksgiving.

Rethinking Thanksgiving

A few days after my sister’s text, I saw an event in Berkeley, “Rethinking Thanksgiving,” all about teaching children about indigenous culture and celebrating new ways to think of the Thanksgiving celebration. This event got me thinking about doing some rethinking of my own.

I am a writer. I write about issues important to me, usually about empowerment and finding joy. Going ahead with a typical Thanksgiving after these two knocks in the head seemed neither empowering nor joyful. I wanted to write about Thanksgiving, and what we are celebrating, but I couldn’t do that while also cooking turkey and mashed potatoes.

“Hey all! Let’s not forget all the Indians our Pilgrim ancestors killed today! (munch munch munch, insert picture of fresh pumpkin pie).”

No, I couldn’t do it.

So that’s when I decided not to. This year, I took Thanksgiving off to rethink it, to see what it feels like to not go through the rituals I have mindlessly gone through for almost forty years.

History Divorced, Judgment Free

To be clear, I did not do this to say I will never celebrate Thanksgiving again, never make a turkey, never make sweet potatoes or Brussel sprouts on the third Thursday of November. I may or may not resume my traditions next year. This was never about judging people who celebrate or being ashamed to celebrate.

Yes, I am ashamed that it took me this long to get here, to a place of recognition and clarity, but that is highly personal.

I realize that most people do not celebrate Thanksgiving for the Pilgrims and the Indians. We spend time with family, we practice our gratitude, and we eat too much. We know that the ancestors of white people in this country killed off the Native Americans. Many of us just don’t know what the hell to do with that information.

Now, as an American culture, we all come together and discuss giving thanks, we talk a lot about being grateful, and how gratitude is the most important thing ever, and so on. We all have some version of a huge meal shared with our loved ones.

We have pretty much divorced the modern tradition with its false narrative origins.

Still, I wanted to experience a personal moment of silence, a rethinking, a reflection.

What I Did

Nothing. I did nothing I would normally have done for Thanksgiving. I didn’t buy any of the usual food stuff. I didn’t invite anyone over to eat my delicious food. I didn’t worry about it at all.

What I did do was read to my children from Native American literature. There is a great book, Crow and Hawk, that my daughter loves, about the importance of actually being a mother, as opposed to merely producing children. I also picked up one of my favorite Native American authors, Louise Erdrich, and got started on Love Medicine. My daughter and I also spent time over the last week discussing colonization and native/indigenous people.

I made ground beef tacos for dinner Thursday, and we sat down as a family and watched Mulan, which gave me the opportunity to talk to my daughter about building walls to keep people out, and how ineffective that is, how counterproductive it ends up being.

I also, for the first time in my life, unclenched in my kitchen.

Carlos brought home a free turkey from work and I gave him carte blanche to do with it as he would. Just not on Thursday. Then I invited all of my friends over at the last minute for a potluck.

“Bring food, bring wine, bring dessert, bring your kids. Let’s hang.”

And we did. We spend Saturday night after Thanksgiving laughing and loving each other. Our kids had a ball playing, and the grownups discussed everything from our youth to the state of our union. Youth – great! SOTU – not so great!

I didn’t cook or clean anything. I just looked into my friends’ eyes, listened to their voices, their stories, and shared my own. I played with my baby, and I laughed, a lot.

Sunday, the last day before getting back to work after five days off, I cleaned, I ran in the rain, I lay down, and my children crawled all over me. I rested.

What I Learned

I learned what many of you probably already know, and maybe are already putting into practice. Life is precious. Family and friends are invaluable. Laughter is healing.

American history is bloody; it is ugly; our (white people) ancestors have committed atrocities greater than any other culture on earth. We are the inheritors of that legacy, and we can choose what to do with it.

We cannot live in the past, but we must recognize it in order to move forward, if we hope to move forward well.

I learned that I can take this horrible tragedy that was committed, the first of many, and turn it into something beautiful, a celebration of life, a carrying on of traditions and values that are not my own but that resided here long before I came along. I can spend Thanksgiving week in deep appreciation of Native American culture, a celebration of life as a way to mourn death.

One thing that is common knowledge about Native American culture is that it was community based. Native Americans understood quite well what we Americans seem to have forgotten on so many levels: we need each other.

We cannot survive long without community. Every single person plays a part and deserves to be valued for that role. Every single life is sacred. Each member of the community is an integral part of the community.

Hence the potluck, a tradition I will continue. Everyone brought something, food, drink, sweet, plus their voices, their stories, their love. We build communities this way, through contributing, including, loving.

I learned that I can honor another culture by learning the lessons that culture has handed down through its inheritors.

To Be Grateful, But Not Too Grateful

Finally, I agree with the basic premise of gratitude. It is clear that when we are grateful for what we have, we are open to receiving more. When all we focus on is lack, all we can see is lack. Obviously, too, when you are grateful for a gift, a friend, a kind word, you are more likely to receive more, gifts, friends, kind words.

But I also think we must be careful not to get comfortable in our gratitude. Often, gratitude can devolved into a “just be lucky you have food,” which both allows people to hold us down, and allows us to hold ourselves down.

Of course I am grateful for all I have.

And I want more.

Our culture for some reason has insisted on this narrative of humility and gratitude while the very few rich get disgustingly richer and everyone else suffers.

“But be grateful you have more than that guy!”

I know this trap very well because I have fallen into it in the past. I am so grateful to have such a great job, a wonderful boss, my beautiful children, my adoring husband, my fabulous apartment, I am just so damn happy.

Meanwhile, my writing skills sit, wait, atrophy, dying on the vine. My dream of becoming a writer does the same, withering away, ready to blow in the wind.

My gratitude left me terrified to reach for more.

I had to say, “yes, I am ridiculously grateful for what I have. And I am ready for more.”

I had to stop allowing my gratitude to paralyze me.

Next Year

Who knows? Not me. I liked not cooking Thanksgiving dinner. The people in my house genuinely do not care about Thanksgiving food. We are happy to spend time together, to sit around four mornings in a row at breakfast before we begin long lazy days of walking in the grass barefoot and playing video games.

I may long for the food. I may travel to my sisters’ houses and get all stressed and exhausted with them. I may do exactly the same thing next year. Hell, I may build on this year.

It has only been a few days. I need time for reflection, time to think, and rethink.

After all, if I have learned nothing else from this Thanksgiving protest, I have learned to think more carefully about traditions before I celebrate them.

 

155 thoughts on “My Thanksgiving Protest: History, Community, Gratitude”

  1. I have always enjoyed the festivities of Thanksgiving. However, the past couple of years I have been thinking about several of the subjects outlined in your post. I agree with so much of it. Good for you for standing up for what you believe! P.S. I subscribed to your blog. 😉

    Reply

  2. We did a non-traditional Thanksgiving this year and at Mexican food and went to an escape room with our adult children. Family is what I’m thankful for and that’s what I chose to celebrate.

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  3. Love your Thanksgiving, and totally agree with your ideas. My favorite year was when my friends and I got together, ate Mexican food and watched movies all night!

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  4. We have been purposely trying to focus more on the family and spending time together aspects and not so much on the food and the rest. This year was better than so many others because we were able to relax and laugh.

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  5. I actually genuinely love Thanksgiving, and while the issues you discuss are so, so important, I choose not to tie them directly to the holiday. It is a lot of work (and sometimes a stressful mess with 2 kids under 4 in tow) but it’s worth it for all the love and warm fuzzies that come with celebrating in our traditional way with family (big turkey and everything). No one should feel pressured to do that though! We are all so different, us as individuals and our family units and how they operate. What’s important is that you learned something about yourself and what traditions you want to pursue, that is incredibly valuable. 🙂

    Reply

    1. absolutely. I agree. and that is why this was an interesting experiment for me. I totally love Thanksgiving, and in the past have chosen not to make the connection as well. This year I just wanted to see how it would feel to bow out, give up my love of the holiday, and focus on the history. I think it doesn’t hurt that I’m a history and government teacher, haha. You are right; it is totally a personal choice, and there is no room for judgment or criticism of how other people celebrate or decide not to.

      Reply

  6. I have actually never liked Thanksgiving. A holiday all about overeating was never one of my favorites. I didn’t do anything this year because my kids all moved out so I didn’t have to. I loved doing nothing.

    Reply

    1. ahhhhhh. doing nothing is so fabulous isn’t it? we as a society need to get more comfortable with doing nothing. we’d be so much happier.

      Reply

  7. Love the candidness in your post! I feel you, totally! Our house is always the “gathering” place for Thanksgiving. The excuse is always “but your house is the biggest and has more room” and yet I am left each year with the hostessing, the food preparation (well, that’s my husband) and the clean up! Tacos work for me 🙂

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  8. I agree that we shouldn’t minimize what happened, but I think of it as a time to be grateful for what I have. I wouldn’t care about the food, but my husband genuinely loves turkey. We often make a turkey “just because.” I’m a high school teacher, and I was so exhausted this year that I told my extended family that my family was just going to stay home. We saw them on Saturday with no meal, but we spent some time together. On Thanksgiving, we stayed home and my husband made a turkey. We did a lot of resting, which was nice. I really enjoyed it this way, though some may view me as selfish. That’s what I did this year.

    Reply

    1. good for you. Remember that self care is not selfish. You have to do what works for you. Thank you for your comment. And yes yes yes to husband’s making turkeys. Haha

      Reply

  9. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday mostly because of the closeness of family and friends. We celebrated the weekend before this year, due to kids schedules, etc and then me and my husband had a very relaxing Thanksgiving Day by ourselves. So, for me, it is about just being thankful, and it doesn’t matter what or when you celebrate it.

    Reply

  11. Great post! I struggle with the meaning and events that occurred and celebrating the holiday every year – these are great ways to work through that. Thanks for sharing!

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  12. I love how you chose to spend Thanksgiving and then followed with a “Friendsgiving.” What a great thing for your kids to expose them to the positives!

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  13. What a good mother to make your children aware of the true history of this country’s foundation. We celebrate Thanksgiving, and I love it, but we certainly don’t glamourize and gloss over the history behind it.

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  14. I love your stand on thanksgiving and completely agree. I had to work thanksgiving this year and it was nice not cooking. I did miss seeing family and friends but I can do that any other day too.

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