November is the official beginning of the holiday season. The weather gets colder, the drinks more warmer, and glove and scarf sales skyrocket. The comforting hues of oranges and browns appear on the leaves and the Halloween pumpkins are traded in for Thanksgiving pumpkins, because yes, there is a difference. Thanksgiving is usually a time associated with family and good feeling and food. Even for those who don’t celebrate Thanksgiving, November brings a certain kind of holiday spirit and togetherness. For those who do celebrate Thanksgiving, it’s normally a happy affair with concerns over whether or not the turkey’s cooked all the way through, or if there will be enough mashed potatoes for seconds. For one MHS senior, however, Thanksgiving brings up a slightly veiled history.

“I’m one-fourth Native American and so naturally Thanksgiving is not one of the absolutely best holidays for me,” senior Juliana Mitchell said. “I like the general holiday, like I do like to spend time with my family, but I don’t like that it’s mainly based on how the pilgrims and the Native Americans came together and were peaceful for one point of time.”

Thanksgiving is a holiday that is supposed to celebrating the alliance of the first settlers of the New World and the natives that helped them, but Mitchell says that isn’t what it is about anymore.

“First of all, Thanksgiving really focuses more on the Pilgrims and how friendly they were being to the Native Americans and it portrays them as really kind people,” Mitchell said. “In reality, after that they drove the Natives out of their land and killed them mercilessly. It’s like Thanksgiving only wants to focus on the small bit of history that wasn’t completely cruel and it brushes off everything else, which is really insulting.”

Reparations have been made to the Native Americans for their suffering but it isn’t nearly enough and only insult to injury according to Mitchell.

“And what’s even more insulting is the fact that Thanksgiving is still celebrated every year like it’s some fantastic affair when still to this today Native Americans are living in the worst conditions on reservations,” Mitchell said.  “They’re still being treated very poorly and everyone ignores that.”

The meaning of Thanksgiving has been conveyed over the years to represent American settlement instead of their alliance with the Native Americans.

“I do like where they were going with the meaning of the holiday when it first started though. I feel like they focused way too much on the Pilgrims and not the Native Americans,” Mitchell said. “If anything, Thanksgiving should be a holiday celebrating and honoring Native American heritage. Thanksgiving has basically lost all of its Native American roots.”

The Thanksgiving tradition overall is being overlooked and taken for granted by the events of Black Friday.

“Another thing I don’t like about Thanksgiving is that although it was a terrible attempt at honoring Native Americans it was still an attempt, but now it’s being over shadowed by Black Friday,” Mitchell said. “It’s like any kind of meaning Thanksgiving could have had is now diminished because all people look forward to is Black Friday.”

So when you’re sitting down to your Thanksgiving dinner remember the reason why we have the holiday and appreciate the efforts the Native Americans made so the settlers would survive.