As a Native American, I Won’t Feel Guilty Celebrating Thanksgiving

As a child, I was not aware of fantasy or its harm. story He said the Indians helped the Pilgrims grow gourds, ate turkey together, and later lived happily together. I made a collage with red and orange leaves and made models of California missions with sugar cubes.

The Indians were actually the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe, who lived on the land around Plymouth Rock for thousands of years before the Mayflower arrived with disease, weapons, and an insatiable hunger for land. I have no doubt that the starving people of Plymouth are extraordinarily grateful for aid and food; I have a hard time imagining what indigenous people — even in the 1600s — were grateful to colonists for. Historians guess this is 10 to 15 million (and as high as 112 million) At the time of “contact” with Europeans, people were living in what is now the United States, and by 1900 colonization had reduced our population to less than 250,000. This is not something to toast.

Right now the United States isn’t creating much that indigenous people will appreciate. Environmental injustice – just like lack of access to fresh water For the Navajo Nation (30% of Navajo citizens do not have running water), epidemic of violence against Indigenous women (four in five Indigenous women have experienced violence in their lifetime) and disproportionate incarceration rates and longer terms in federal prisons for Indigenous people.

With this fact, the stench of betrayal can permeate celebrations where natives and European colonists gather for a fine meal.

“Stop making your tummy hurt,” I can almost hear my grandmother (I call her Mawmaw) saying as she carefully peels open the shells. Mawmaw is my grandmother and the head of our family. Instead of complaining about things we cannot change, he prefers to act determined. You don’t have time to cry while preparing a turkey and ham dinner for 20 people, including your cousin’s ex-wife and the neighborhood elder who just lost her husband.

Mawmaw grew up outside Beggs, Oklahoma, on land assigned to her mother after the U.S. government broke its promise to protect “Indian Territory” for Native Americans. Sometimes his father would sit on the porch all night with a shotgun in his hand. The Ku Klux Klan was known to lynch Native Americans there. Mostly, Mawmaw and her eight siblings didn’t have time to “have a fit,” as she put it.

The area around the stream that runs through my family’s land was frequently flooded, making the area almost useless for any kind of crop. They called it “The Bottoms”. Although they were uncertain, walnut trees were growing in the Bottoms. Some years Mawmaw and his brothers were able to gather baskets full of walnuts; other years nothing. The gooey hazelnuts in the flaky crust were something to be treasured.

That cake was one of the most important events of my life. Beyond being delicious, it symbolizes my family’s connection to our land in Oklahoma. Although the original homelands of the Muscogee people are Georgia, Alabama, and Florida, making Oklahoma a second choice for an oddball rental, that’s what we have. I’m grateful for that and for my cousin who still protects our land.