Who do we thank on Thanksgiving Day?

In the third grade, I remember Ms. Bianca dressed half the class in pilgrim outfits and the other in Indian outfits. Our costumes were made of construction paper. I wore a white paper collar and a brown hat (I was a pilgrim). We had to perform in front of the whole school: we sang "America, the Beautiful" & translated the lyrics into American sign language as we sang. Back then, we still celebrated Columbus Day.

Now, in California, we celebrate Martin Luther, Jr.'s birthday in place of Columbus Day. We no longer teach our kids the saying "in 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue." Instead of learning about the fateful and meager meal shared between resourceful & friendly American Indians and starving & desperate Pilgrims, high school students learn the truth about Christopher Columbus. I did not learn these truths in school. I had to learn them on my own, when I picked up a few eye-opening books, such as Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, Lies My Teacher Told Me, and A People's History of the United States. These books reveal the true events when Columbus arrived on Hispanola Island and slaughtered the Arawak Indian population, when he saw gold studs in their ears and forced them to search for gold with the threat of cutting off limbs... Many Americans shy away from this history; they call it revisionist. But our country is built on the blood of the indigenous, and our history of violence is a long and continual one. To ignore it is to ignore the natives who occupied this land first.

I will teach my children that the creation of our country is based on genocide, and out of its creation more violence but also progress, diversity, and opportunity.