A Kind and Culturally Aware Thanksgiving
As the Thanksgiving holiday approaches, we wanted to share a few helpful resources for expanding awareness about the Native Peoples of North America and understanding more fully the complicated and nuanced history of this national holiday.
While this article is geared toward educators, we can all learn from its wisdom and information about how to honor Native Americans not only at Thanksgiving, but also every day of the year, and this piece from the National Museum of the American Indian reminds us that one of the ways Native Americans are erased from our culture is by removing the specific names of their tribes from our stories. For example, did you know the “Indians” present at the first Thanksgiving were of the Wampanoag tribe and that their union with English settlers had a lot to do with politics and the hope for peace?
Not only can we educate ourselves, we can educate others, as well, not through spouting off facts, but by sharing stories. We are Water Protectors, Fry Bread: A Native American Family Story, and We are Grateful: Otsaliheliga are a few children’s books that are excellent for the whole family. Joy Harjo, the first Native American (of the Muscogee Creek Nation) Poet Laureate of the United States, offers rich, image-focused poems that invite introspection and imagination, and Louise Erdrich is an American novelist who represents the Chippewa experience in her novels. Finally, if you prefer watching and listening to a story unfold, Padma Lakshmi’s critically acclaimed series, Taste the Nation on Hulu, features “The Original Americans” in episode 7 of Season 1.
We hope Thanksgiving offers you time and space to listen and share stories that expand the mind, open the heart, and awaken the imagination toward a more kind and culturally aware world.
