Putting thoughts onto paper is a task I find both enjoyable and intimidating. To share your visions and your perspective is powerful. It is an act of vulnerability and courage.
In my culture, when we gather together for a meal or celebration, we make it a common practice at the end to stand up and share our thoughts. We take time to listen to those speaking, to hear their words, to feel what they are saying and to understand that they are speaking for a reason.
We encourage them through our presence, our listening and through small affirmations at the end. Some say “a-ho,” some say “mm-hmm,” and others may even say, “That’s good.” The beauty of this moment is that both the speaker and the listener are acknowledged. They are seen, and they exchange a kind of love and respect that words cannot express.
As Thanksgiving approaches, I find my thoughts often conflicted. I like to reflect, and some of those reflections circle around difficult questions. Why do we celebrate a day that commemorates an ideal that is not fully true? Why celebrate something that could have marked the beginning of a downfall, a genocide of peoples who were thriving, surviving and living with deep identities and civilizations of their own?
Growing up, I was taught that Thanksgiving was a time of hope, friendship and gratitude for life itself. For a long time, I truly believed in that meaning. My memories hold images of family gatherings filled with laughter, warmth and amazing food that somehow only appeared on that day. Delectable desserts, savory dishes and endless plates shared among loved ones. I remember falling asleep watching football, hearing my aunts and uncles tell stories about their lives, and playing games with my grandparents and cousins I hadn’t seen in a while.
As I have grown older, I understand the deeper and more painful truths that exist alongside those fond memories. For many Indigenous people, Thanksgiving is not simply a story of friendship. It is also a reminder of the consequences of colonization and the ongoing struggles for sovereignty, justice and cultural survival.
The version of the holiday most often taught in schools, the peaceful meal between the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag in 1621, rarely includes the full historical context. Within decades, European settlement brought disease, land theft, broken treaties and violence that devastated Indigenous communities across the continent.
These truths are not distant from me. My own grandparents were sent to government-run boarding schools here in Wittenberg, where they were stripped of their hair, culture, language and family. They were looked down upon for the color of their skin and taught to be ashamed of who they were. Sometimes I am left wondering how their families felt and how my grandparents felt being away from one another. I also wonder why these painful truths, truths that are not centuries old, have not been told, taught or shared.
Then I am brought back to my present self. I now feel what it is to be a parent, a mother, a grandmother, and I think I can begin to understand what my own grandparents might think of us today. They taught us resilience so that we could survive. What they held onto of their culture, they passed down in who they were, in their strength, their love, and their hope for us, so that we could thrive. They loved us and wanted the best for us, and in turn, we love and want the best for our children.
Now, when I look toward my children and their children, I see a wondrous desire to learn the truths that have not always been spoken in schools or public spaces. I see them trying to comprehend a country that, for lack of a better word, stomped on people who had no idea what destruction lay in wait for them. I feel their understanding, their anger, their despair and their hurt as they begin to grasp these truths.
Then I see them look around and recognize the strength that surrounds them, the prayers that have followed them. They are renewed like eagles. They stand taller and speak with firmer voices, intent on knowing right from wrong and standing for those who once had no voice. They do not go silent into the night. Instead, I see them rise in a way that was not possible for those before them. I see them determined to shape a future that speaks the truth.
I rejoice at the thought of gathering together to celebrate and create traditions that include truth. To sit alongside and eat with those who strive to ensure our history is not forgotten, and to live in a way that honors diversity, upholds tradition and loves others with respect. When one of us stands to share what is on our hearts, another responds, softly but surely, “That’s good.”
Jessica White Wing-Clark is a member of the Wittenberg-Birnamwood School Board and the senior manager for public relations at Ho-Chunk Gaming Wittenberg.
