Thanksgiving

No class today. I hope you are able to spend the day safely with your loved ones.

Why Thanksgiving?

Thanksgiving is a controversial holiday because, especially in the US, it is associated with the genocide and abuse of indigenous peoples by colonists. Just last week in Canada, indigenous mother of four Joyce Echaquan died in a Quebec hospital after recording medical staff use racial slurs against her and overdosed her on morphine.

Unlike American Thanksgiving, which is celebrated across the US in November with a uniform narrative about friendly pilgrims, Canadian Thanksgiving has an unclear history. In the early years of European colonialism in the Americas, thanksgiving dinners were a common event among Protestant Christians. These communities campaigned for a legal autumnal holiday for "thanksgiving and prayer" before Canada was even legally a county. Canadian Thanksgiving would, therefore, take place on a variety of dates from September through December. After the end of WWII, Canadian lawmakers set the date we are now familiar with as a celebration of armistice. Even now, Thanksgiving isn't celebrated much in Catholic-dominant Quebec or much of the Maritimes or northern territories.

Indigenous peoples and young people have been working to transform Thanksgiving into a day which honours the messy, violent past of this country. Secular groups have claimed Thanksgiving as a harvest festival.

However you choose to spend this Thanksgiving, I hope that you and your family can celebrate being safe and together.