Daddy, Papa and Me

This is a repost from 3 years ago. I’ll rewrite this someday, but I hope this shows you why Thanksgiving for me is the greatest of American holidays…

Perusing my blog neighorhood (blogs I read, like) this holiday weekend I came across several that had qualms, misgivings or reticence about Thanksgiving as a celebratory holiday.

I have no qualms, misgivings or reticence at all, not one iota. And neither did my grandmother of native descent. Read below.

Here are my three reasons, the last addressing the qualms the other bloggers seemed to have.

1. Thanksgiving is one of the few holidays my family can actually celebrate together.
Of the 3 dozen or so family members in my family (parents, siblings and spouses/family), there are devout Muslims, Mormons, Buddhists, Baptists, Atheists and Lutherans. There are those of Palestinian, Native-American, African-American, Asian and Anglo heritage. Christmas is out. Of course so are any Islamic or Buddhist holidays. Independence day might work, but nobody seems to want to travel to family then. Nix Columbus day, Winter Solstice, don’t even think of Easter. No, it is the one holiday that we all can celebrate and enjoy no matter our religious or ethnic background.

2. Thanksgiving is one of the few uniquely American holidays
I remember a Dutch friend of mine querying me very intently on Thanksgiving. What foods we ate, what traditions we had, what myths were built up about it, what was its history. Since I had always been a Thanksgiving fan, I knew the history behind the myth, the history of its development. I explained it to him, told him about the foods (Turkey, stuffing, corn, potatoes, pumpkin pie, etc) and the traditions. He actually was a bit taken aback… a tradition that has been carried out in some form and developed for nearly 400 years, with its own _uniquely_ American foods and traditions. He said he didn’t think Holland had much like that itself, something so uniquely Dutch and celebrated for 400 years. A lot of my European friends were similarly fascinated by this holiday, it belied the whole notion that the US didn’t have its own ‘culture’.

3. The ‘real’ Thanksgiving history is neither the myth nor the counter-myth. The real Thanksgiving is about an hope and an ideal

My grandmother, a descendent of the Mattaponi, a tribe of the first Virginians, knew full well what had happened to her ancestors. How could she be? The once proud nation was now a few hundred people relegated to a minute portion of their former lands. Their culture and language only glimpsed at in a few sayings and memories. 90% killed off in disease before the Anglos even arrived, and then constant war and death for a hundred years only to be crammed into a small plot of land to be discriminated against for the next 300 years.

No, no love there.

So why celebrate Thanksgiving?

There are several reasons. First was that she was very proud that nearly EVERY traditional food on the list was those that the Native-Americans gave the world, foods that her ancestors introduced the world to. It was to her, someone who loved to cook, a way to remind the world and her family, in some small way, what her ancestors gave the world. Turkey: Native, Potatoes: Native, Corn: Native, Pumpkin: Native. Who really cares what the ‘real’ first Thanksgiving feast had (though in all reality, they probably had all those and more.. deer, goose, lobster), these are uniquely Native foods. She was, and I am, very proud of that. I remember learning that directly from her. These were native foods.

But what about the history of the actual day? Is that something to celebrate?

The myth you heard as a child is just that, a myth. The myth of that ‘first’ Thanksgiving in 1621 is, in many ways, far from the actual facts and leaves out a lot of unsettling and horrifying truths about that period. Yet, it seems to be fashionable to create counter-myths of Thanksgiving rather than a reasoned discussion of the facts. The counter-myth I link to there is ironic because it actually takes the Anglo myth of the ‘noble savage’ mixed with modern new-age ‘eco-utopia’ past myth as its basis. It does neither the truth, the Native Americans or Anglos any service.

The facts? They are scarce really, there are only two relatively contemporary accounts of that day, both by ‘Anglos’ (so, grain of salt time) and the history and archeology of the time paints a different picture than either myth above. There was a three day feast, a peace treaty, relative friendliness, Native foods, etc. For a short three day period, and for some years possibly after, there was a moment, a glimpse of peace and co-existence.

Everything after that is horrifying.

But does that negate the ‘meaning’ of that specific day in 1621, and more importantly, does it negate the history and meaning of Thanksgiving?

Not at all. On the contrary, we should cease on that ‘glimpse of peace’ in 1621 and hold it up as an indictment of what happened in the ensuing 400 years and even more so as a hope and promise of where we should go in the next centuries.

I think this is what my Grandmother saw. For her, Thanksgiving was almost like a passover seder. I don’t think she would have put it that way of course or maybe even have articulated it in such a way, but I have distinct memories of Thanksgiving being a time of not only ‘thanking’ God (or just being grateful in general) for what we had but also of a sort of ‘next year in Jerusalem’ feast… a promise that the glimpse of peace and promise from 400 years ago might someday actually be fulfilled. It was a way for her to carry on at least one small part of her heritage’s contribution and to keep the ‘memory’ alive.

But Thanksgiving is much more than that ‘first’ Thanksgiving (which was never celebrated again), it evolved beyond and above that first story… far beyond.

Governors and presidents including George Washington proclaimed state and national days of Thanksgiving, but these were ‘one time’ affairs, and though the holiday evolved and morphed during those years, it wasn’t until Abraham Lincoln made it an official American holiday that it became a national celebration every last (later 4th) Thursday of November.

Why did he do it?

First, most of the credit has to be given to Sarah Hale who had, among other things like equal education for girls, been advocating for a national thanksgiving holiday for years. The nation was in the midst of a horrifying Civil War and torn apart by geographic, racial and ideological divides. It was exorcising itself of the evils of slavery in blood. President Lincoln had hoped that a national _American_ holiday, a day we _all_ could sit down together might bring our very diverse and divided nation together.

For me (and perhaps my grandmother in some unspoken way) Thanksgiving also meant bringing together a family, and by extension a diverse nation. It doesn’t mean forgetting the wrongs of the past (on the contrary, those always seem to come up don’t they?), but it does mean to remember the promise. It was a good lesson for a young boy who was both proud of and ashamed by the past of his anglo and native ancestors. Perhaps in a sense it helps reconcile that strange disconnect.

So every Thanksgiving our family will celebrate the feast. The one holiday that will bring my entire family together at one table, whether we be gay or straight, Christian or Muslim, of African, Hispanic, Native, Asian, Anglo or other background. At least for this family, Mrs. Hale’s and Mr. Lincoln’s hopes are being fulfilled.

And we will teach our daughter that Thanksgiving means a gratititude for what we have and a promise of harmony in spite of, and even because of, the past. We do and will celebrate Thanksgiving wholeheartedly.

Just call me an old sentimental fool.

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This entry was posted by Trey on Monday, November 19th, 2007 at 1:14 pm and is filed under Rituals and Traditions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.