This weekend I’ll be gathering with friends to celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving. I did not grow up celebrating this holiday. A holiday to give thanks is not a thing in Mexico, in part because there are several harvests throughout the year where I come from. Winter, as many of you may know, is not such a daunting and disruptive phenomenon in many parts of Mexico. Of course, we Mexicans have our own celebrations and festivities. Everyone knows we like parties, but we just don’t have a particular one at a national level equivalent to Thanksgiving.
I have usually celebrated Thanksgiving with other people’s families since my family does not celebrate the holiday. I have also celebrated in the past with groups of friends whose cultures do not have a giving-thanks holiday tradition either. So, sometimes we get creative and make our own. This year’s theme is a Turkish dinner put together by Turkish friends.
Although I am excited for the food (obviously! Turkish food, yum!), I am most excited by the company that plans to gather around the table. I am grateful this year for community, friends and family, plus family away from family. I appreciate that holidays in which we give thanks can provide us an opportunity to be reminded of all the blessings with which we have been gifted — and the bounty that life can be. Although I do not have the nostalgia and sentiment attached to memories of a family holiday as others may have, I have grown to value the gesture of gathering and being intentionally thankful with others.
It is also true that the Thanksgiving holiday, in Canada as well as in the United States, should remind us of realities that are less pleasant to think about and remember. I say should because I know it does not always happen. Many choose to ignore the histories and traditions that gave birth to this now staple holiday in most of North American culture. To that end, I am focusing on five things that make Canadian Thanksgiving what it is today.
1. Beginnings
According to a CBC article, “Canadian Thanksgiving started in 1859 when Protestant leaders called on the colonial government to create a day for giving thanks.” However, as many may already know, the tradition for thankfulness and celebration at harvest time does not have its official roots in a government’s arbitrary decision. The Ottawa Citizen states that “Indigenous Peoples marked the fall harvest with prayer, dance and potlatch thousands of years before colonial settlers celebrated.”
2. Native foods
Like in any culture, food is extremely important for its people. Context also dictates what people will eat and have access to. This was particularly true back in the days of first contact between Europeans and Indigenous people. Edmonton chef Scott Iserhoff describes for the CBC that “Everything that’s included in Thanksgiving, it’s all Indigenous food… you got the squash, you got the tubers, the potatoes, the mashed potatoes, the turkey, the corn … they were here before settlers came, and that was a food source of [Indigenous People].”
3. Appropriation
Nobody likes talking about appropriation, I know. It is uncomfortable. It makes people feel bad, guilty, and maybe even shameful. But that is not the point. The point is to recognize and give credit to the original sources of culture and tradition, creativeness and wisdom, knowledge and truth. As a starting point, “Critics are challenging magazines that publish features about Thanksgiving dinner with no representation of Indigenous chefs.”
4. Realities
In Canada, over half of the children in foster care are Indigenous. It is a grossly disproportionate percentage compared to the 5% of the population that Indigenous peoples represent. Under this current reality, thousands of Indigenous children won’t get to celebrate their ancestral tradition of thankfulness with their families and eat the foods their people have been eating for thousands of years, surrounded by their community.
5. Being thankful
Thankfulness is present in many religions around the world. Although it is not an exclusively Christian practice, I appreciate so much how central it is to our faith. Yet, I want to be careful when claiming this as a Christian practice because Thanksgiving is not a Christian holiday. I heard the opposite claim from a local Christian business owner recently. I wish I could go back in time and remind him that this beautiful holiday has, in fact, its roots in very rich, long-standing Indigenous traditions that have been shared with us. And for that, I am thankful.
Have a comment on this story? Write to the editors. Include your full name, city and state. Selected comments will be edited for publication in print or online.