Underneath the plethora of festivities, Thanksgiving is inherently an occasion of contradictions. It is a day for communities to gather together, punctuated by distractions of food and football. It is a holiday defined by the thankfulness for one’s current possessions, overshadowed by the gluttonous commercialism of Black Friday sales. But, most importantly, Thanksgiving is a moment for reflection on a history that is far more complicated and harmful than the simple narrative once portrayed.
The history many Americans were taught growing up regarding the origins of Thanksgiving involved a ceremony of unification between the Pilgrims and Native Americans, with a feast willingly offered by Indigenous communities to help European explorers overcome the winter and establish a thriving settlement. But this narrative is woefully incomplete, masking the very real history of tragedy brought upon Indigenous communities by European colonizers. There is a growing realization among many non-Indigenous Americans of what Indigenous communities have always known: The arrival of European settlers in North America heralded an era not of unity, but of genocide, much of which still harbors generational trauma.
Today, we’ve come to associate Thanksgiving with reflection and gratitude for one’s blessings. The next step is to critically examine how one came to acquire those blessings. Like with conversations involving race and privilege, this doesn’t discount individual grit and sacrifice, but we must acknowledge the historical imbalances that led to the current distribution of welfare.
Land acknowledgement statements, for example, are crucial to encouraging awareness of and taking responsibility for the historical and ongoing impacts of colonialism. At St. Joe’s, there are statements appearing in documents like class syllabi and the commencement program, recognizing that the university resides on the ancestral homeland of the Lenape people. However, St. Joe’s still does not have an official university-wide land acknowledgement statement, despite the efforts of internal groups to create one. This is a step the university must take, if it truly wants to fulfill its mission of cura personalis — for members of the St. Joe’s community and for the Indigenous people who had a community here before us.
This Thanksgiving, as we leave to celebrate with friends and family on lands across the country that historically belong to Indigenous peoples, it’s imperative we remember to not only be thankful but also mindful of the true history that has led us to where we are today.
