Perhaps November was selected for Native American Heritage Month because it coincides with the Thanksgiving Holiday, one of the main events in which children come to understand who we are as Americans. As Native mothers, we know that Thanksgiving is fraught with exposing our kids to stereotypes about Native Peoples. (To learn more about these stereotypes, see this webisode our team created for PBS Learning media). Our team at Bioneers has been working together to unpack what Thanksgiving means and how we can all be part of transforming it into a holiday that celebrates all our histories. Check out the resources we have developed here (and share them widely)!

This annual Decolonizing Thanksgiving newsletter is a tradition grounded in Bioneers’ longstanding commitment to supporting a transformative understanding of the holiday’s significance for all Americans. 

In this newsletter, we’re sharing an interview with IlluminNative founder Crystal Echo Hawk, tips on how to celebrate the real history of Thanksgiving with your whole family, and an interactive map to help you figure out whose ancestral territories you’re living on.

Join us in exploring this collection of content and tools focused on decolonizing Thanksgiving.

Sincerely,

Alexis Bunten
Indigeneity Program Co-Director

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Reshaping Narratives: Native Voices Reclaim Representation in Media and Society

“As Native Peoples, we’ve all carried this duality: We feel very much unseen and unheard in society. We feel very invisible. But at the same time, if we are visible, then we’re just caricatures. We’re the stereotypes. We’re some other sort of representation that is not of our own making.” – Crystal Echo Hawk

Crystal Echo Hawk’s leadership with IllumiNative has been a staunch advocate for a broader public understanding of the damages that one-sided media has caused our Native communities, evidencing it with groundbreaking public data, and explaining it in a way that everyone can understand.

This is a story about Native Peoples as we are changing the ways that we are seen today, but there is also a broader lesson to learn about how the media depicts and vilifies underexposed and misunderstood populations who are discriminated against.

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Decolonizing Thanksgiving with Bioneers 

In 2016, Bioneers made a commitment to recognize and share the truth of what Thanksgiving means for Native Americans and all Americans.

On this page, you can find resources to learn more about what it means to decolonize Thanksgiving, from articles to videos and curriculum. Join the movement to celebrate the real history of Thanksgiving, start conversations with your family and friends, and create new traditions.

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New Traditions to Include at Your Thanksgiving

With Thanksgiving around the corner, millions of families across the country are preparing to celebrate one of the more loved holidays on the calendar. Most look forward to the day as a time to take a break, be with family, and enjoy a meal together in the spirit of gratitude, but for many Native Americans, Thanksgiving is a national day of mourning over the genocide that took place throughout America. Here are some ideas for new traditions you can include at your Thanksgiving this year to better honor the Native Americans, immigrants, and their descendants who contribute to our country’s diversity.

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‘Keepunumuk’: Teaching Children the True Story of Thanksgiving

“For children who read this book as their first exposure to Thanksgiving, Keepunumuk will shape their baseline understanding of the Wampanoag peoples and all Native Americans by extension.” — Alexis Bunten (Unangan and Yup’ik), co-author of Keepunumuk and co-director of the Bioneers Indigeneity Program.

In 2022, Charlesbridge Press published Keepunumuk: Weeâchumun’s Thanksgiving Story to transform the story of this holiday that so many Americans take for granted. This children’s book creates a new story that puts Native peoples and nature at its heart. Two children from the Wampanoag tribe learn how Weeâchumun (corn) persuaded the First Peoples to help the newcomers (the Pilgrims) survive in their new home.

Watch a reading of the book by the authors for first- and second-graders via Politics and Prose Bookstore in Washington, D.C., here, and learn more about the book itself here.

Whose Ancestral Territories Are You Living On?

A fundamental task for non-Indigenous people who want to be better allied with Indigenous people is to learn whose land they are currently living on. Identifying the Nation native to the land you live on can foster gratitude, humility and open doors to learning more about the history of colonial dispossession.

Explore

Work with Bioneers: Request for Proposals

• Bioneers Learning Online Education Technical Producer | Bioneers is seeking an Online Education Technical Producer contractor to work with us to provide technical support and expertise for our online learning platform, Bioneers Learning. Learn more.
• Radio Producer/Writer | Bioneers is looking for a producer-writer to work with us to create a 4-episode limited audio series related to the topics of Intelligence in Nature and Nature-based Solutions. Learn more.