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Celebrating Genocide
Thursday, December 16th, 2021
Feature Thanksgiving genocide
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Eva Johnson
Copy Editor
In the midst of the holiday season, the origins of the holidays should be considered, especially Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving has generally been celebrated with family and friends, sharing gratitude and food, but the real background of the holiday, which contains genocide, disease and false friendships is often ignored.
It was the Wampanoag Native Americans that helped Puritans to survive in the so-called New World, and most history books share that the first Thanksgiving happened in 1621.
It’s taught that the Wampanoag and settlers gathered together at one table for a large feast to celebrate the first autumn harvest. However, this is not the full story.
According to an Insider article, in 1637, John Winthrop, Massachusetts Bay Colony’s governor, declared the day to celebrate colonial soldiers who slaughtered hundreds of Pequot Native American men, women, and children.
Thanksgiving became a national holiday in 1863 when writer Sarah Josepha Hale persuaded Abraham Lincoln that Thanksgiving was necessary to keep the divided nation together.
“It was propaganda...to try and build this event so that you could have a deeper narrative about community building and coming together in shared brotherhood and unity,” Dr. Kelli Mosteller, Citizen Potawatomi Nation Cultural Heritage Center Director stated in a 2020 interview.
Author and Director of Research at Plimoth Plantation, James Baker explains that it was during the Progressive Era (1890-1920) that the Thanksgiving myth of peaceful friendship between the colonizers and the tribes became the story that every U.S. school taught.
“I’m totally for having a ‘Thanksgiving’ but this history that is usually portrayed…[is] glorifying a genocidal history [against] Native Americans,” Native American
Club President, LeMonie Hutt explained. Discussing the difficulties of relearning and understanding U.S. history, Cedar Spirit, a junior at Six Rivers Highschool, said “...we always want to paint ourselves in a good light, and so it’s hard for us to paint ourselves in another way because we want to believe that we are good. So we need to really learn to get rid of that bias.” “I think we’ve gotten slightly better at teaching more of this broad history...[but] it would be good to start having that discussion,” Hutt shared. When the truth behind Thanksgiving is known and discussed, it can become a time focused on giving thanks while also remembering the often ignored history of the holiday. COVID-19 mental health check in
Jean Thuy
Reporter
The global pandemic has had immeasurable effects on the world.
From the economy, to the isolation of millions of people in quarantine, the pandemic had a huge impact on many young people.
The loss of routines, the end of sporting events and activities, not being able to see friends and family, school closure and the reduction of social contact are all factors which made the mental health of many students worse.
Julin Hahn, a high school student from Germany, talked about his mental health during COVID.
“It was pretty okay, but during the pandemic, I just lost my daily routine and my daily life was the same everyday,” he stated.
He explained that the pandemic affected him so much strongly because he is an extremely extroverted person.
The lack of social contact and being unable to have any of his normal activities like basketball, made the pandemic especially hard for him.
Shahn said that his mental health has gotten better since he is getting a routine and social life back.
He is beginning to live nearly a normal life, but the consequences from COVID-19 on his mental health will still need time to heal.
“Your mental health is not like a light switch which you can turn on and off,” he said.
On the flip side, there are also students who saw the pandem improve themselves.
Aida Schrauger, a senior at Arcata High said that she was really struggling before COVID-19. ”I was really having a hard time because I needed to figure out not exactly who I wanna be but what I wanna to do,” she said.
She also explained that she had just gotten out of a bad living situation before COVID-19 started.
She said that since she was stuck in the house, she had time to figure out her mental health.
“I think it pushed me to heal from a lot of stuff which happened when I was a kid,” she said.
Her mental health hasn’t really changed since the school opened again.
“School is stressful but it’s good to see everyone,” she said.
There won’t be a magic day when we can heal our mental health from the impact of COVID-19, the residual effects will be with us for a long time to come.
Lila Cohen/PEPPERBOX YoungMinds survey by the BBC carried out in March of 2020 surveyed 2,111 teens on their mental health over the pandemic
