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Thanksgiving – it’s complicated
· What are we celebrating?
· If you ask different people you will get different answers.
· What did we learn when we were kids? Well, we learned :
- These people, the Pilgrims, were not able to practice their religion freely in England so in November 1620, they came to an English colony in what is now Massachusetts in the Americas.
- They came on a ship called the Mayflower and they wore tall black hats with buckles. They named their new community New Plymouth.
- They had a very hard first winter, and the native people in the area helped them.
- After they survived the first year, the Pilgrims had a feast to give thanks and the native people joined them. They all ate turkey, corn and pumpkin pie and lived happily ever after.
It turns out, the truth is more complicated. The Pilgrims took the land the native people, the Wampanoag, had lived on for at 1200 years. Many Wampanoag, like other native people, died from diseases brought by the Europeans. Today many Native Americans gather in Plymouth, Massachusetts on Thanksgiving Day to remember the countless Indigenous people who have been killed by European colonists.
So that’s just a little of the complicated history of Thanksgiving Day. President Lincoln declared it a national holiday in 1863. Thanksgiving is always the fourth Thursday in November. Schools, banks offices (Costco!) are closed. There's a big parade in New York City on Thanksgiving - the Macy’s parade.
Does your family celebrate Thanksgiving Day? What are your Thanksgiving Traditions? Memories? Activities? Food?
What are your plans this Thanksgiving Day, dear listener?
Is there a day of thanksgiving in your native country?
Please send us a comment! It’s a great way to practice your English!
Latonya and Diana talk about the Thanksgiving holiday.
Tacomaliteracy.org
