HFA Speaks: Thanksgiving Through Indigenous Eyes

By Lian Benasuly

On the third Thursday of November, Americans around the nation celebrate around the dinner table with loved ones, with comforting food and sometimes with unwanted conversations. But for Indigenous people, this day can feel like an anxiety-ridden horror film, said UC Santa Barbara assistant professor of English Amrah Salomón J. at a panel about Indigenous narratives of Thanksgiving, held earlier this week.

“You wake up one morning and everyone is celebrating the death of your people. And you’re still here having to watch them enjoy themselves with that thought,” Salomón J. said. “Even if they’re unaware of it, even if it’s just so banal that they don’t even know that that’s what they’re doing. There’s this incredible spine-tingling discomfort that comes with that moment.”

HFA student Maxwell Wilkens (top right) spoke to faculty from UCSB’s English department, Candace Waid (bottom left) and Amrah Salomón J. (bottom right), and from Cal State Northridge’s American Indian Studies department Alesha Claveria (top left) during “HFA Speaks: Thanksgiving Through Indigenous Eyes.”

Salomón J. is working on the history of her tribal communities in present day southern California, Arizona, and Mexico to narrate the history of peoples who were separated from their pasts and experienced dispersal, bondage and violent death.

She, along with UCSB English professor Candace Waid and Cal State Northridge professor of American Indian Studies Alesha Claveria — a UCSB Theater and Dance alum — spoke at “HFA Speaks: Thanksgiving Through Indigenous Eyes,” sponsored by UCSB’s Division of Humanities and Fine Arts.

HFA student intern Maxwell Wilkens moderated the discussion to mark Native American Heritage Month and examine the painful associations the holiday holds for Indigenous peoples. During the 45-minute Zoom session, the three professors conveyed alternative narratives of Thanksgiving that have yet to become commonly known and understood.

Friday also marked Native American Heritage Day, which is celebrated nationally on November 25 annually.

For Claveria, saying the name of the holiday out loud is frustrating and causes internal struggles.

“Saying Thanksgiving as a name for the holiday brings up a lot of internal conflict between wanting to be around friends and family and also being aware of that history and of how this public and popular national holiday is also very much a culturally-appropriated holiday,” she said.

Even if modern celebrations omit the colonial pageantry of the pilgrims and make the holiday about gratitude, they use the foods and traditions of Indigenous people—pumpkin, corn, turkey, squash—to signify a historical event that in reality ended in genocide, Claveria said.

Salomón J. vividly recounted how “dehumanizing” it felt to be in elementary school in the 1980s, as the tokenized Indigenous person in her classes. The culturally-appropriated holiday is something she had to endure for years, with most of her class not understanding the pain she would feel.

“I would dread [the holiday] every year as the only kid in my elementary school who had Native American boxes checked, being the one that the teachers would call on to dress up as an Indian in a way that didn’t match how my ancestors dressed at all,” Salomón J. said.

Her dad would tell her to “tough it out” because it was even worse when he was a kid, she added.

In recent years, these counter-narratives have been more frequently spoken about around the nation, but more needs to be addressed and acknowledged, the speakers said.

Currently, the American Indian and Indigenous Studies program under the Religious Studies department at UCSB has a minor in American Indian and Indigenous Studies for undergraduate students and is in the process of adding a major, according to Waid. The university’s American Indian & Indigenous (AIIC) consists of 28 members representing Chumash peoples, UCSB undergraduate, graduate, and faculty, and Santa Barbara community members. There is an academic council and a research focus group under the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center, it advocates for Native and Indigenous students’ needs and concerns. UCSB’s Linguistics program covering American Indigenous languages is one of the strongest worldwide, Waid said.

Please click below to watch the full panel discussion. It can also be accessed on the YouTube channel of UCSB’s Division of Humanities and Fine Arts.

Lian Benasuly is a fourth-year student at UC Santa Barbara, majoring in communication and pursuing a minor in professional writing. She is a web and social media intern for the Division of Humanities and Fine Arts.