by Anti-Racist Parent columnist Natasha Sky
Our family holidays and traditions focus on family. (We will be with more than 50 members of one side of my husband’s extended family for Thanksgiving next week.) Our family’s holiday celebrations also revolve around seasons. After unceremoniously moving this way for years, our family is now making a conscious effort to celebrate the original holidays that many national holidays were slapped over oh-so-many years ago.
- At Thanksgiving time–the Harvest Festival–we focus on gratitude and remembering our blessings.
- At Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa time, we are returning to a Winter Solstice celebration of light and giving.
- At Easter time–the Fertility Celebration–we focus on spring and rebirth.
- In late June/4th of July, we celebrate high summer, Summer Solstice (the longest day of the year), and Juneteenth.
As each commercialized holiday season rolls around, we use the increased community attention as an opportunity to talk with our children more about specific perspectives missing from mainstream culture:
- What really happened at ‘the first’ Thanksgiving dinner? How did the Native Americans and English Puritans (the stereotyped ‘Pilgrims and Indians’) really feel about each other and treat each other?
- Who was Jesus? What did he do? What do people believe about him? What is a prophet? Who are other biblical and non-biblical prophets?
- Why do our Jewish friends light their menorah at Hanukkah?
- Why was the holiday of Kwanzaa created? Who celebrates it? What are the 7 principles of Kwanzaa?
- Who exactly gained ‘independence’ on the Fourth of July? (And who didn’t?)
One of our main goals with holidays is to be inclusive, (probably an outflow from living in our multiracial family). We hosted a Multicultural Family Celebration on New Year’s Eve a couple years ago. It was a family-focused vegetarian potluck here at our house. We still had our Holiday evergreen tree up and decorated. It was the 6th night of Hanukkah and friends brought their menorah to light. Other friends came in party-clothes from their home countries. We sang songs. It was the last night of Kwanzaa, and it was our family’s all-inclusive multiracial and multicultural celebration (which came out of my understanding that the celebration of Kwanzaa usually includes only people who have ancestry from the African diaspora).
In addition to family and seasons, we use holidays as a time to again think of others who are living through difficult times. Throughout the year, we encourage our children to reflect on the experience of other people (they usually think of children) who do not have as many advantages and comforts as our children. We are really careful to talk about this (especially because some of these are people our children know personally) in a way that does not induce guilt, but that encourages them to (a) be grateful for what they already have, (b) consider whether another purchase/present/item on the eternal wishlist is really necessary, and (c) think about what others need–as opposed to what our children/we simply want.
Our family has one friend in particular (I’ve known him since I was 11 or 12) who lives and works in a very impoverished neighborhood. In addition to just generally taking care of his friends and neighbors–and anyone else in need who comes to his attention–he houses and cares for homeless pregnant women, and then for the women and their newborns for a period of time after the babies are born. We send him money (mostly for fans, heating oil, and cab fare to the hospital) and diapers, baby clothes, and anything else he says he needs.
Last fall, my oldest two children decided we should take all the presents family members sent to our kids in December–and then box them up and mail them to our friend so that he could give the gifts to kids who didn’t have any presents for the holidays. The kids’ idea inspired us to talk to all our family (and ‘chosen’ family) and request that they send money directly to our friend’s organization, or to my brother (who then went shopping for specific items our friend had requested).
Now, I’ve got to be honest, this idea was not universally well received. There were several family members who took personal offense that we were asking them not to send the kids presents. (Please–no more stuff! We don’t need anything and I don’t know where we’ll put it!) Some family members instead gave money in our name to charities we do not philosophically support–but it was a start.
Without realizing it, our family has returned to celebrating the passing of the seasons instead of participating in most contemporary holidays. Even birthdays (which are a big deal here at our house, with a cake and singing and royal-treatment all day on your actual birthday, and a party on the weekend with lots of friends and more cake and singing) are focused on the person’s completion of another trip around the sun, a year to be reflected on, learned from, and celebrated.
Back to the U.S. holiday closest at hand: Thanksgiving. Here are some resources for parents seeking historical accuracy, age-appropriate content, a way to tell the entire story and still feel good about celebrating Thanksgiving. (My thoughts? We’re celebrating the end of a fruitful year and all the blessings our family has received.)
- Giving Thanks: A Native American Good Morning Message: This book appears to have universally good reviews from all corners.
- Teaching About Thanksgiving: A succinct recounting for parents who want to know the full story of the ‘first Thanksgiving’ including who the real participants were.
- Oyate: “Oyate is a Native organization working to see that our lives and histories are portrayed honestly, and so that all people will know our stories belong to us. For Indian children, it is as important as it has ever been for them to know who they are and what they come from. For all children, it is time to know and acknowledge the truths of history. Only then will they come to have the understanding and respect for each other that now, more than ever, will be necessary for life to continue.” Visit their resources page for the article “Deconstructing the Myths of the First Thanksgiving” as well as books to avoid about Thanksgiving and recommended books.
- American Indians in Children’s Literature: A new blog discovery for me, with many resources including suggestions and commentary about the way we represent Thanksgiving.
- A Resource List for Teaching to or about Native Americans: A comprehensive list of books, not just related to Thanksgiving.
Natasha Sky is a multiracial woman, a writer, an artist, and an activist—as well as the fulltime mother of four multiracial children all under the age of six. Two of Natasha’s children joined her family through open domestic adoption and two of her children joined her family through homebirth. Natasha created MultiracialSky.com, a website of resources for multiracial families. During naptime, Natasha writes about multiracial family life.
Thanks for this, Natasha. I’ve thought about the winter solstice possibilities before, but not about the other holidays, which we don’t usually celebrate except for Thanksgiving.
I find this question particularly tricky since we are living overseas, so my kids won’t be exposed to these holidays at all unless we teach them about it. Well, they’ll also hear about it in their schools and from American friends here, but it’s up to us to create the traditions for our family. So how do we do that, honor the true meaning of these holidays, but also help our kids understand what it means to be American so they can feel comfortable in the US as well?
No need to answer of course–but you’ve given me some interesting things to think about.
I have to say that I’m more excited for Thanksgiving this year, being out of the country, than I have been in a long time.
Natasha, this is great – thank you for the resources!
I am a Christian, but around this time of year, I make sure that any messages I send are universal in nature (which my pagan, Hindu, and Buddhist friends say they appreciate). The core of festivals and the history, real or appropriated, is important to acknowlege. I’m struggling with how to bring more truth into my usual celebrations, which I think my immediate family has to start now before my daughter is older and gets too much info from the outside world, about how things are SUPPOSED to be. You have definitely jump-started my thinking process.
In the spirit of reclamation, then:here’s an excerpt from the 1970 speech by Wampsutta.
For anyone who hasn’t run into this before, Frank James (Wampsutta) was an Aquinnah Wampanoag elder and Native American activist… who was invited by descendents of the Pilgrims to speak at a Thanksgiving feast in Plymouth, Mass., and promptly DISinvited when they realized what he intended to say.
He ended up saying it nearby during a protest. The full text is here: http://www.blackcommentator.com/207/207_day_of_mourning_wampsutta.html
Excerpt:
It is with mixed emotion that I stand here to share my thoughts. This is a time of celebration for you – celebrating an anniversary of a beginning for the white man in America. A time of looking back, of reflection. It is with a heavy heart that I look back upon what happened to my People.
{snip}
What happened to those Wampanoags who chose to remain and live among the early settlers? What kind of existence did they live as “civilized” people? True, living was not as complex as life today, but they dealt with the confusion and the change. Honesty, trust, concern, pride, and politics wove themselves in and out of their [the Wampanoags'] daily living. Hence, he was termed crafty, cunning, rapacious, and dirty.
History wants us to believe that the Indian was a savage, illiterate, uncivilized animal. A history that was written by an organized, disciplined people, to expose us as an unorganized and undisciplined entity. Two distinctly different cultures met. One thought they must control life; the other believed life was to be enjoyed, because nature decreed it. Let us remember, the Indian is and was just as human as the white man. The Indian feels pain, gets hurt, and becomes defensive, has dreams, bears tragedy and failure, suffers from loneliness, needs to cry as well as laugh. He, too, is often misunderstood.
{snip}
Our spirit refuses to die. Yesterday we walked the woodland paths and sandy trails. Today we must walk the macadam highways and roads. We are uniting We’re standing not in our wigwams but in your concrete tent. We stand tall and proud, and before too many moons pass we’ll right the wrongs we have allowed to happen to us.
We forfeited our country. Our lands have fallen into the hands of the aggressor. We have allowed the white man to keep us on our knees. What has happened cannot be changed, but today we must work towards a more humane America, a more Indian America, where men and nature once again are important; where the Indian values of honor, truth, and brotherhood prevail.
You the white man are celebrating an anniversary. We the Wampanoags will help you celebrate in the concept of a beginning. It was the beginning of a new life for the Pilgrims. Now, 350 years later it is a beginning of a new determination for the original American: the American Indian.
There are some factors concerning the Wampanoags and other Indians across this vast nation. We now have 350 years of experience living amongst the white man. We can now speak his language. We can now think as a white man thinks. We can now compete with him for the top jobs. We’re being heard; we are now being listened to. The important point is that along with these necessities of everyday living, we still have the spirit, we still have the unique culture, we still have the will and, most important of all, the determination to remain as Indians. We are determined, and our presence here this evening is living testimony that this is only the beginning of the American Indian, particularly the Wampanoag, to regain the position in this country that is rightfully ours.
I love what Tasha has to say.
My son’s kindergarten curriculum at our local public school in small town Vermont is amazingly monocultural AND very heavy on the holidays. While I had anticipated a “Christmas blitz” and had begun meetings with the teachers (and principal) in August(!), I was amazed that on the first day of October, my son came home counting down the days to Halloween, and the day after Halloween started talking up Thanksgiving. Tucked in amid the Halloween month-long build-up was a song about the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria, and I realized he was also getting his first glimpse of Columbus Day (with nary a Taino or Carib in sight).
As a result of one of my early discussions, in which I learned that the PTO sponsors a “Tree of Hope” fundraiser in December (an evergreen on which children who can afford to donate $1 get to tie a red ribbon. The money is then donated to other kids’ families who have financial need), I proposed that helping the community should be a year-long effort, not just associated with one particular holiday, since many religions have holidays that include charity at many different times of the year. As a result, the PTO is now sponsoring “Neshobe Shares” with a different fundraiser each season, appropriate to the many types of holidays, festivals and celebrations associated with the four seasons we experience here in Vermont. This fall we sponsored a Penny Harvest for Autumn: The Season of Harvest. In the winter, we hope to sponsor a program to get energy-efficient light bulbs into every child’s house in honor of the Season of Bright Nights. In the spring we will focus on planting and fertility festivals and celebrations.
A secondary part of the initiative is education about the different festivals, holidays and celebrations. I prepared handouts for teachers to use as they saw fit with their classes, both about hunger issues (the money from the Penny Harvest is going to the local food shelf) and about different celebrations in different cultures.
Believe it or not, this endeavor is politically sensitive. Apparently some faculty were put off when the first handout I distributed focused on the feast at the end of Ramadan (which is not a seasonal festival, but which did occur in October this year). However, the principal had approved the handout, and one teacher did personally thank me for making the effort.
It will take a long time, I fear, to get the focus off the holidays and back to the natural world where I think it more appropriately belongs for the kindergarten curriculum. In the meantime, I am working on getting the holiday-centric curriculum that IS currently in use to at least be a bit more inclusive.
So that’s my view about holidays and public schools.
Enjoy the last days of fall, everyone, and happy and healthy winter!
Rebecca
I am reading this a little late, but I will definitely keep these links handy. I homeschool so any additional info I have is great!!
Natasha, a very belated welcome to ARP!