I stopped feeling guilty about celebrating Thanksgiving as a Native woman

On Thanksgiving, I’m usually overheating in a rust-colored sweater, yelling at my kid to take off his dirty hoodie, and cooking a dry turkey with jelly-like sauce. I feel guilty all the time. Although my father’s family was Native American from the Muscogee Creek Nation, I grew up in California with my mother, who was white. Mostly I didn’t think about my tribe. As I learned more about my family’s experiences leading up to the Trail of Tears, I began to understand: Dark feelings that Thanksgiving evokes in locals.

When I had a family of my own, roasting the turkey and managing family disruptions became my job as a holiday host. Low-level feelings of betrayal came with my choice to run to the turkey trot instead of taking the ferry to Alcatraz for a protest. This year — with the help of my grandmother’s wisdom and wonderful pecan pie — I plan to make light of contradictions and find purpose and even joy in my fall gatherings.

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.

Native Americans are not a monolithic group. Hundreds of tribes and millions of people live in cities, reservations, and rural areas; each looks at Thanksgiving from their own perspective; From “I’m going to gorge myself like everyone else” to protests at the National Mourning Convention in Plymouth. Source. Most of my friends will be on the ferry at 5:30 a.m. for a sunrise meeting at Alcatraz, the federal district once occupied as an act of resistance in the 1970s. From sitting on the couch playing football to political protests, locals will do it all.

This year, instead of running around in a crowded kitchen feeling hot and guilty as usual, I’ll make something in between. I cannot solve the problems of water rights and violence against Indigenous women alone. While I do my best as a lawyer to help incarcerated people receive fairer sentences and more humane conditions in prison, I can mostly only do small day-to-day actions.

I love running the turkey trot through the cool streets of my small town. To anyone who will listen, I will acknowledge the Confederated Villages of Lisjan, the Cocheyon-speaking Ohlone people who have owned and managed the land here for thousands of years. I’ll thank them by paying them back around tax time. Voluntary land tax called Shuumi.

I will be baking pecan pie with my kids using Mawmaw’s recipe. I will try to get help from my nieces and nephews; It’s so nice to see them in real life instead of an Instagram post. After dinner, when we go around the table giving thanks, I will recite this prayer before my brother-in-law detonates the Fireball: Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving AddressA beautiful alternative to traditional elegance.

I will wear the sweater I bought online B. yellowtailNorthern Cheyenne and Crow designer that I support. I just ordered fruitcake Waypepah’s Kitchen in Oakland. Even Commanders (formerly known as Indians) (finally!) change your name. Supporting Native businesses, eating at restaurants run by Native chefs, advocating for native tribes, and reading books by Native authors like Tommy Orange’s “Wandering Stars” are admirable actions.

The fantasy that the Natives share their harvest with the Pilgrims and coexist happily with them is nothing to celebrate. The fact that so many Indigenous people have survived and now thrive is something to be grateful for. I won’t be posting my Thanksgiving table on Instagram; The day and what it represents are too complicated for a picture of perfectly roasted turkey and greens emojis. But I’ll stuff my face with pecan pie.

This article was first published on: TODAY.com