Left: My family on Thanksgiving 2023, on the lands of the Chochenyo-speaking Ohlone people. Right: My son, Zach, and I on Thanksgiving 2021.
On Thanksgiving, I’m usually overheated in a rust-colored sweater, yelling at my kid to take off his dirty hoodie and cook a dry turkey with gravy that resembles a Jell-O mold. I feel guilty all the time. Although my father’s family is Native American, from the Muscogee Creek Nation, I grew up in California with my mother, who is white. I usually didn’t think about my tribe. As I learned more about my family’s experiences on the Trail of Tears, I began to understand the situation dark emotions that Thanksgiving evokes in the native population.
When I had my own family, roasting the turkey and dealing with family problems became my job as holiday host. Low-level feelings of betrayal came with my choice to run the turkey trot instead of taking the ferry to Alcatraz for a protest. This year—with the help of my paternal grandmother’s wisdom and her amazing pecan pie—I plan to keep the contradictions light and find purpose and even joy in my fall gathering.
As a child I didn’t recognize the fantasy or the evil of it the story that the Indians helped the Pilgrims grow gourds, that they ate turkey together and then lived happily together. I made collages with red and orange leaves and made models of the 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 brought disease, weapons and an insatiable hunger for land. I have no doubt that the starving people of Plymouth were extremely grateful for help and food; It’s hard for me to imagine what the indigenous people – even in the 17th century – were grateful to their colonists for. Historians estimate those 10 to 15 million (and even 112 million) people lived in what is now the United States at the time of “contact” with Europeans and by 1900 colonization had reduced our population to less than 250,000. It’s not something to raise a glass to.
Currently, the United States is not doing much that its indigenous people can appreciate. Environmental injustice – such as the lack of access to fresh water for the Navajo Nation (30% of Navajo citizens do not have running water), the epidemic of violence against indigenous women (four in five indigenous women have experienced violence in their lifetime), and the disproportionate incarceration rates and longer terms in federal prisons for Indigenous people.
With this reality, the smell of betrayal can linger during a celebration of indigenous peoples and European settlers coming together for a delicious meal.
“Stop your stomach ache,” I can almost hear my grandmother – Mawmaw, I call her – saying as she carefully rolls out her scabs. Mawmaw is my paternal grandmother and matriarch of our family. She likes no-nonsense perseverance instead of complaining about things we can’t change. There’s no time to cry when you’re preparing a turkey and ham dinner for twenty people, including your cousin’s ex-wife and the neighborhood elder who just lost her husband.
Mawmaw grew up outside Beggs, Oklahoma, on the plot of land assigned to her mother when the U.S. government broke their promise to preserve “Indian Territory” for the Indians. Sometimes her father sat awake on the porch all night with his gun at the ready. The Ku Klux Klan was known to lynch Indians there. Most of the time, Mawmaw and her eight siblings didn’t have time to “throw a fit,” as she would say.
The area around the creek that ran through my family’s land would often flood, making it virtually unusable for any crop. They called it ‘the bottoms’. Pecans grew in the Bottoms, even though they were fickle. Some years Mawmaw and her siblings were able to gather baskets full of pecans; other years nothing. Sticky nuts in a flaky crust were something to cherish.
That cake was one of the highlights of my life. Not only is it delicious, but it also symbolizes my family’s connection to our land in Oklahoma. Even though the Muscogee’s original homelands were in Georgia, Alabama and Florida, making Oklahoma a difficult kind of second-choice rental home, it’s what we got. I am grateful for it and for my cousin, who still manages our land.
Native Americans are not a monolithic group. Hundreds of tribes and millions of people live in cities, reservations and rural areas, each with their own view of Thanksgiving, from “I’m going to stuff myself like everyone else” to protesting during the National Day of Mourning at Plymouth Steen. Many of my friends will be on the ferry at 5:30 a.m. for the sunrise rally on Alcatraz, federal land once occupied as an act of resistance in the 1970s. From sitting on the couch playing football to political protests, the indigenous people will do it all.
This year I’m going to do something in between instead of normally walking around a crowded kitchen feeling warm and guilty. I alone cannot solve the problems of water rights and violence against indigenous women. Although I do my best as a lawyer to help incarcerated people get fairer sentences and humane prison conditions, most of the time I can only perform small, everyday actions.
My family runs the turkey trot during a pandemic Thanksgiving.
I love running through the chilly streets of my small town on a turkey hunt. To anyone who will listen, I will acknowledge the Confederate Villages of Lisjan, the Cocheyon-speaking Ohlone people who owned and managed the land around here for thousands of years. At tax time I will also thank them by paying my voluntary land tax, called Shuumi.
I am going to bake a pecan pie with my children using Mawmaw’s recipe. I will try to get help from my cousins; it’s so nice to see them in real life instead of in an Instagram post. As we go around the table and express our gratitude, after the meal, but before my brother-in-law breaks out the fireball, I will Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Addressa nice alternative to a traditional grace.
I will wear the sweater I bought online B. Yellowtaila northern Cheyenne and Crow designer that I champion. I just ordered the berry cake from Waypepah’s Kitchen in Oakland. I might even cheer for the Commanders (formerly known as the Redskins) for (finally!) changing their name. Supporting Native businesses, eating at restaurants led by Native chefs, advocating for local tribes, and reading books by Native authors such as “Wandering Stars” by Tommy Orange are acts of appreciation.
The fantasy that indigenous peoples shared their harvest with the pilgrims and then lived happily with them is nothing to celebrate. The fact that many indigenous peoples have survived and are now thriving is something to be grateful for. I won’t post my Thanksgiving table on Instagram; the day and what it represents is just too complicated for a photo of the perfectly tanned turkey and leaves emojis. But I’ll stuff my face with pecan pie.
This article was originally published on TODAY.com