An interview with one of my friends:
LaPena notes that the whole image of Native people and settlers breaking bread together is especially fraught in California, where Americans more than once took advantage of native ceremonies to commit unspeakable acts. On one occasion in 19th Century California, says LaPena, Americans came to a roundhouse — a large, partly earth sheltered traditional building used for cultural events — while a ceremony of gratitude was in progress. “They sealed the roundhouse door shut with a cross-beam,” says LaPena, “covered the outside walls with tar, and set it on fire. The people inside were burned to death; women, children, old people.”
That could make it hard to want to sit down to a Thanksgiving dinner even a century and a half later, not to mention the orgy of shopping that comes after. “The idea that Thanksgiving is followed by Black Friday shopping is a problem,” says LaPena. “By encouraging buying more and more things, the holiday promotes a consumerism that is very dangerous.”
But LaPena, who I quoted in August about the potential upsides of the invasive weed star thistle, is adept at finding glimmers of hope in even the bleakest situations. Though she makes it clear that the holiday’s horrifying historical context never strays far from her mind, she finds a commonality between the official intent of Thanksgiving and a core tenet of her culture.
“I don’t want to deprive my children of an opportunity to learn the importance of giving thanks,” says LaPena. “We need to give thanks for the acorn. We need to give thanks for the seaweed. We need to give thanks for everything Earth Mother provides us.”
Williams and her family celebrate Thanksgiving as well, but this year she says she’s lost any enthusiasm for the holiday. She compared the burial desecrations that started in 1621 — and the deadly European epidemics that preceded them by five years — to this year’s Presidential election.
“Back then we extended welcome to the settlers, and they turned around and deprived us of everything,” Williams says. “We lost everything. And this year, with all that we stand to lose now that Donald Trump has been elected, it just feels like 1621 all over again.”
“I’m having a real hard time with white people this Thanksgiving,” Williams adds. “I bought the food, because of our kids. They asked me ‘are we having Thanksgiving this year?’ I told them that we can have the dinner, but I’m not feeling particularly thankful.”
