At an event called Decolonizing Thanksgiving, students learned about the different Native American perspectives and prominent myths surrounding the holiday, Nov. 22.

Thirty-five people attended the event, which was held by the Office for International Student Engagement (OISE) along with the Association of Latin American Students (ALAS), the Association of Black Students (ABS), and the American Indian Student Association (AISA). 

The event started with a land acknowledgment — Director of the OISE Evelyn Real said that WashU is on the land of Osage, Missouria, Illinois Confederacy, and many other tribes. 

Each group that helped put on the event had speakers, starting with Victoria Meza, a member of AISA and a graduate student in the Brown School, who spoke about the importance of understanding Thanksgiving’s deeply colonial history. 

“When the pilgrims arrived to what we now refer to as Massachusetts in 1620, they formed a mutually beneficial alliance with the Wampanoag,” she said. “Initially, this worked out, but as is the case with settler colonialism, it wasn’t long before the pilgrims contributed to the genocide of indigenous peoples on North American continents.” 

Paul Scott, a senior and member of ABS, spoke about the Black perspective on Thanksgiving and reminded the audience of the holiday’s ties to slavery. 

He explained that enslaved people working in the fields would catch animals for family and friends, adding that many foods commonly associated with Thanksgiving in the Black community came from enslaved people having to make do with leftover food. 

“They would take the leftovers from slave owners’ houses and make meals. This [was also] the main source of soul food; personally, my favorite is cornbread,” Scott said. 

Next, Natalia León Díaz and Lupita Chavez, the Social Justice Lead and Advocacy Co-Chair of ALAS, spoke on the Latin American perspective on Thanksgiving. Leon-Diaz touched on the implications of colonialism for Puerto Ricans like herself — an issue she says is not typically acknowledged.

She went on to say that her family celebrates Thanksgiving — which they call San Given — because of the pressure to assimilate, even though other Latin American countries do not. She also acknowledged that Puerto Ricans have a complicated relationship with the holiday. 

“It’s a moment to gather with family and extend grace for the difficulties of being a Latino person,” she said. “However, for some Latinas, the celebrations bring anger, because of the displacement of Native [American] people, but also that extends to [other parts] the Americas.”

León Díaz made a point on how providing a day off for the holiday is an example of institutional assimilation.

“You get to the United States and you have to practice the cultural holiday, which in turn might be an erasure of our own culture. Thanksgiving is kind of imposed on you, because they give it to you as a holiday,” said León Díaz. 

Real explained that even if students are not having conversations with their family about the history of Thanksgiving, they can practice a decolonial mindset by understanding that not everyone views the holiday as a joyful event. 

“Some Indigenous folks don’t celebrate, but knowing why they don’t celebrate, and then going into it consciously is all we’re asking,” Real said. 

For students and community members in the audience, Real pointed out that the St. Louis area is rich with Indigenous culture, highlighting the Cahokia Mounds right across the border in Illinois.

“There are still about 183,400 native indigenous people [in] this area,” Real said. “They might not identify themselves from the outside, but they are very much still here.”

Real established the need for students to speak up and actively oppose cultural appropriation wherever it pops up, from team mascots to the fashion industry, artists, and school plays.

“Challenge cultural appropriation. Here in Missouri, we have the Kansas City Chiefs,” she said. “People are taking something that does not belong to them, and they are making it their own and using it as props. They’re using it as a costume, and that is not the point of a headdress,” Real said. 

She ended the event by talking about how the origins of Thanksgiving still affect Native American communities today, including exploitation projects that take resources away from reservations.  

“All of this seems like it happened many, many years ago, but it is still constantly happening,” Real said. “Just because it’s not in the news doesn’t mean it is not happening.”