This past weekend, I was home in Connecticut for thanksgiving. I got to thinking about the meaning of Thanksgiving. What I concluded is that Iit is a completely environmentally concerned holiday. The pilgrims came over to this “new” world in search of, among other things, freedom, resources, and perhaps adventure. They stepped into a completely new environment and desperately needed to learn its functions in order to survive in it. So, they did what any traveler would do, they consulted the locals. The Native Americans thus taught the Pilgrims the ways of their new environment and how to prosper in this foreign landscape. Unfortunately, the altruism was short lived when the Native Americans were pretty much wiped out in the subsequent centuries. However, every Thanksgiving, we give thanks to these Native Americans who provided our European ancestors with the vital information they needed to settle in this land. Thanksgiving is all about harmony amongst people and earth, generosity, and most importantly I would argue, environment. Not only should be thankful for the legacy of our European ancestors and Native American ancestors, we should be thankful for the balance of our environment that enables us to exist in our terrestrial ecosystem. So this Thanksgiving, I dedicate my toast to the earth. Cheers!
Although Thanksgiving is meant to commemorate that moment when it was all well between local and traveler, many people see it as an ironic and hypocritical celebration of the events that later occurred. Since Thanksgiving is not a traditional holidays for me, I have constructed and given meaning to this newly found tradition which is completely different from the "true" meaning of Thanksgiving. For me, Thanksgiving is a day when we eat good food, maybe spend time with the family, and shop. And it's not just me doing this since I'm living in the US, but my high school also started giving thursday and friday off as a holiday. Sometimes the meaning of imperialism gets lost in translation
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