Wednesday, May 20, 2015
Explore the irony of the discussion about Thanksgiving. Sections #5 (Gavin)
The discussion about Thanksgiving is ironic because Arnold gets to experience both sides of the story. He gets to experience both sides because he is Indian, but also he gets to experience the white people side of Thanksgiving since he is around so many white people and he sometimes even describes himself as half white. As an Indian he does not understand why they celebrate Thanksgiving the same as everyone else because he looks at it as a few years later many Pilgrims were killing Indians. "But a few years later, the Pilgrims were shooting Indians." ( Alexie 101). Also, it is ironic that Arnold is celebrating Thanksgiving the same as everyone else because Arnold doesn't think Indians have anything to be thankful for, unlike white people. "Hey dad, i said. What do indians have to be so thankful for." (Alexie 102). Lastly, I don't think Arnold is enjoying the particular Thanksgiving that is going on because Rowdy used to come over and keep him company, but since they are not friends anymore it is affecting how he enjoys the holiday. Thanksgiving is confusing to Arnold because he thinks Indians should celebrate it in a different way than white people.
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I agree, but be in mind that Thanksgiving has most likely never been a holiday that made sense. It didn't made sense for many white people, and of course that it won't make sense for a Native American teenager like Junior. What is Thanksgiving celebrating? Celebrating the genocide of Native Americans conducted by white people that lead to a population reduce in North America? Everyone knows what Hitler did. Many knows what Genghis Khan did. Some knows about the Armenian Genocide. But few know about what the Conquistadors did, what the "Pilgrims" did, what the "pioneers" did. And what they did is more terrible than what the Ottomans did, more terrible than what Hitler did, even could be more terrible than what Genghis Khan did. What they did is they simply wiped out a race of people, their culture, their way of life. Hitler killed many Jewish people, but we still celebrate Hanukkah, Genghis Khan killed many Chinese people, but the Chinese culture still lived on. What about the Native American culture? The Europeans (later the American-Europeans) de-rooted their culture so harshly that what is left is barely struggling. In conclusion, most American kids knows about the Mayflower and how the Pilgrims seek to build a utopia that...(followed by 200 word praise). But I asked my cousin in China what he knows about the history of the United States once. He is just 7 year old. He said:
ReplyDelete"Well, I don't know much... but what I do know is that the Americans now were Europeans and they took ships to the Americas. When they arrived they killed all the Indians so that they can have the space for themselves"
The word of a child, but how close it is to the simple, brutal truth!
P.S. I wrote this just because I feels like doing it. So it may have nothing to so with the book we are reading. Sorry Ms. Tarshis :)
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