By: Monica Aviles
Thanksgiving lays on the 26th this month. Families gather together, eating their favorite meals, laughing, and traveling. At schools, activities are displayed among young children about the Thanksgiving feast, and its history.
However, celebrating Thanksgiving has become a debate as to if it should be celebrated or not. Many Americans are uninformed about the origin of Thanksgiving, and how the harvest feast in 1621 with the Pilgrims and Native Americans wasn’t accurately told by many.
Aurelia McCormack ‘23, is part of the Salinan tribe. The Salinan tribe’s ancestral territory is in the southern Salinas Valley and the Santa Lucia Range in the Central Coast of California. McCormack explains,“Our real name is Te’po’ta’ahl. (People of the oaks). Our tribe is unique because of our ancestry, how we started, and how we are thriving now.”
“We are cousins of the Chumash, we are coast Indians, which is why Morro Bay is really important to us.” McCormack celebrates Solstice each year for summer and winter at Morro Bay. The Solstice is where the tribe “celebrate the season coming, and pray it will bring luck and prosperity for the year to come.” They also climb the famous Morro Rock, “it’s special to us, and no one else is allowed to climb, only those who are part of the Salinan tribe. It’s like a coming of age for teens in the tribe, where we cleanse our bodies from the negativity of our younger self going to adulthood.”
McCormack doesn’t celebrate Thanksgiving, “I feel like the past decades, people have forgotten the whole idea of Thanksgiving…There’s a lot of different interpretations of how the first Thanksgiving went, but we should tell them the true story of what happened.”
When McCormack thinks of Thanksgiving, she remembers, “the millions of native Americans that died of genocide. It also reminds me of my culture, and the ancestors that died for our peace.” She believes the celebration of Thanksgiving shouldn’t be based on the origin of it, but more of a celebration of family, “People should still be able to celebrate Thanksgiving, but remember the truth, not what they taught us when we were younger.”
She also believes Columbus Day should not be its own holiday, “It’s about a man that invaded land, (not discovered). It already belonged to our ancestors. We should make Columbus day an indigenous people’s day, to honor them (ancestors) and their strength.”
The Sanilian tribe has faced a history of racism, oppression, and genocide. Spanish missionaries came in the 18th century and forced them into slavery. In 1849, many Indians were driven away from their traditional hunting and gathering places due to golden rush settlers. In 1851, Gov. Peter Burnett declared, “a war of extermination will continue to be waged between the races until the Indian race becomes extinct.”
McCormack explains,“We are still fighting for our federal recognition! Currently, the US Federal system has not given us the recognition we deserve. Right now, the land we live on, our ancestors died for, does not belong to us.”
“Please, do not forget the small tribes we live in throughout the Central Valley. We are still alive, and we are still fighting.” – Aurelia McCormack
Tags: Native American, Salinan, thanksgiving
