How Thanksgiving can endure with constantly changing face of America | Opinion
I have been spending Thanksgiving week in Germantown, Maryland, which is a suburb of metropolitan Washington, D.C.
One day I went with my daughter, wife and 1-year-old grandson to the public library for story time. Sitting on the floor, I listened to the storyteller weave stories about Thanksgiving as turkey day. A part of her presentation was even in American Sign Language due to a large number of deaf families in this community.
The room resembled the United Nations, with people from all over the world. At least five languages were being spoken in that room. Yet, when the storyteller began, everyone clapped their hands, sang the songs (in English) with moms visiting with other moms.
The children delighted as the storyteller brought out her bubble machine and culminated in spraying bubbles into the room with the children singing, clapping and punching holes through the bubbles landing on them. A great time was had by all who attended. I heard children asking their moms about Thanksgiving at their homes.
Thanksgiving was supposed to be a holiday celebrating America’s diversity, even back in the 19th century.
Thomas Nast, a German-born American caricaturist who worked for Harper’s Weekly, became famous for developing iconic symbols in American culture, such as the elephant and donkey for political parties and the modern depiction of Santa Claus, as well as many other quintessential images that captured the ideals of America in the 19th century.
In one famous illustration called “Uncle Sam’s Thanksgiving Dinner” on Nov. 29, 1869, Nast created a beautiful Thanksgiving meal with immigrants from around the world seated together celebrating the ideal of America, and giving thanks for the blessings of this nation. On the wall of the room in this picture were images of Presidents Lincoln, Grant, and Washington.
In a similar theme, Nast created an illustration entitled “In the Annual Sacrifice That Gladdens Many Hearts,” in which he presents a Thanksgiving dinner with Africans, Irishmen, Germans and Scots seated around the table.
Just imagine if Nast had created that same dinner table today and the kinds of Americans he would have depicted at the Thanksgiving table. They would be from India, Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and Latin America. Such a scene would not resemble the Thanksgiving table of Nast’s time.
A hundred years from now an illustrator might create a Thanksgiving gathering of people who have immigrated to America from an altogether different set of nations.
However, not all the illustrations or paintings were that idealistic during the 19th century. American artists like Frank Leslie and Winslow Homer depicted in their paintings some of the brutal realities of poverty. They used Thanksgiving as an image to portray the have-nots in American society.
Those paintings provided Americans back then with a heart-wrenching portrait of the poor who worked and yearned for the same vision of prosperity and equal opportunity in America, but who could not enjoy the Thanksgiving that most Americans imagined.
Despite the poverty in American life, Americans have not given up on the Thanksgiving feast, nor the hope of unity and community for our nation. Thanksgiving is a powerful symbol of what we as Americans have achieved.
Thanksgiving, more than any other national holiday, reminds us of our immigrant history going back to the days of the Pilgrims. It reminds us of the struggle that each immigrant generation faces to find that hope of America as a place where people can live freely and without prejudice or oppression. We know that ideal has never been completely true. Yet, we have not abandoned that ideal, despite the pain and the hardships that the poor endure — especially new Americans.
Thanksgiving is a holiday that holds out the hope — whether we are eating turkey or, if we are vegan, maybe tofu — that family, God, and gratitude for the privilege of being an American is affirmed.
It is in the curious eyes of children and their indomitable spirit, as well as in the embrace of parents and grandparents of these children, that America’s promise remains. Words matter, and so do dreams.
The question is whether Thanksgiving will hold fast as a holiday not just about turkeys but about sharing community.
My sense is that as long as storytellers at the public library can inspire the joy and excitement of Thanksgiving as a time about the beautiful tapestry of America’s diversity, then Thanksgiving will endure. New Americans are today’s pilgrims who seek a better life, just like their English forbears.
Rabbi Brad Bloom of Hilton Head Island writes commentary on matters of faith.