No Thanksgiving
My Family No Longer Celebrates Thanksgiving—We Learn Indigenous History Instead
Parents Magazine - November 2022
There are plenty of educators who share how to ethically enjoy a Thanksgiving meal with your family by including a "healthy dose" of history—deconstructing colonization and learning about Indigenous communities. For a few short years, this made sense for my family. Novembers were filled with Friendsgivings focused on gratitude, community service, and good company.
But as time progressed and I continued to read more Indigenous authors and historians and engage with artists' work, my unlearning of American history as it was taught to me evolved. It evolved so much that I reached a crossroads: I had to decide if I could continue with the motions of a Thanksgiving, or if it was time to let it go. My family decided we had to change. It was time to opt out.