










































Poison is Poison 
Folklorist/Parent Seeks Curricular Antidotes to the Myth of the First 
Thanksgiving 
By: LuAnne Roth 

 

“Poison is poison, and ingrained oppressive cultural attitudes are at least as hard to 
antidote, once implanted, as are imbibed cleaning fluids” (Dorris 1978: 78). 

Many food rituals, especially those that are repeated annually, involve the recounting of a sort of 
master narrative that is designed to be etiological. The American holiday of Thanksgiving contains one 
such origin myth. 1 The story of the “First Thanksgiving” tells about the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag 
Indians celebrating their friendship by sharing the harvest feast in 1621. The myth is pervasive 
throughout culture, manifesting in written, oral, visual, and cinematic forms. Although the myth is 
based on fiction, legend, and public relations rhetoric, rather than historical fact, a plethora of 
institutions actively perpetuate it, including textbook authors, teachers, children’s literature authors, 
television/filmmakers, advertising specialists, greeting card designers, website producers, and parents. 
In counterpoint to an interpretation that “imagines the nation as a fixed, monolithic, and self-enclosed 
geographic and cultural whole” (Kaplan 1998:583), in this essay I look—from the perspective of a 
parent and folklorist—at several specific cases in which American cultural representations of 
Thanksgiving reinforce stereotypes that can do real damage. 2 
 
In 2005, at a public school in the middle of Missouri, my son’s kindergarten class learned about the 
voyage of the Mayflower and the Thanksgiving feast of the Pilgrims. While volunteering in the 
classroom shortly before the holiday, I noticed children making “war cries” and “tomahawk chops” 
while cutting out paper teepees. Later that day, my son brought home from school the following 
memo: 

Unit A Feast. Please remember that Unit A will celebrate Thanksgiving with a feast 
Monday morning, November 21. Your child may bring a treat to share with the class. 
Try to think of something to share that may have been at the first Thanksgiving. Fruits, 
vegetables, bread, or nuts would be good choices. Please send in food ready to share. 
[…] Please come help us set up, serve, and/or clean up if you are able. Bring your 
cameras. The students will be wearing costumes we have made at school [emphasis 
added]. 

The story of the First Thanksgiving as a folklore process is traditional because it exhibits “continuities 
and consistencies through time and space” (Georges and Jones 1995:1). More than a quarter of a 
century ago, I myself learned the story of the First Thanksgiving in an elementary school in South 
Dakota. I, too, learned it with Pilgrim and Indian costumes, hand-shaped turkeys, and theatrical 
reenactments. According to historian Elizabeth Pleck, schoolteachers began teaching this myth – with 
its costumed reenactments – during America’s Progressive Era (1890-1920), as “an exercise in cultural 
power, providing children with a dominant set of symbols,” in hopes of assimilating the waves of 



immigrants that threatened white America. School children were seen, in this light, “as cultural 
conduits, bringing home ideas about celebration, national history, and cultural symbols learned at 
school” (Pleck 1999:779-80). The myth of the First Thanksgiving – essentially unchanged from its 
original form – is still being taught as history in the public schools today, despite the preponderance of 
evidence to the contrary (Siskind [1992] 2002:48). Although an “ideology of stability” surrounds the 
holiday, actually, the rituals associated with Thanksgiving have been actively negotiated over 
time (Wallendorf and Arnould 1991:23). What obligation does a folklorist—armed with the truth about 
the invention of the Thanksgiving myth—have to respond to this sort of situation today? 
 
The American Folklore Society’s professional code of ethics states: “Because folklorists study issues and 
processes that affect general human welfare, they are faced with unusual complexities and ethical 
dilemmas. It is a major responsibility of folklorists to anticipate these and to plan to resolve them in 
such a way as to do least damage to those with whom they work and to their scholarly 
community” (“AFS Statement on Ethics” 1988). This code, of course, is open to some interpretation 
and was clearly written with ethnographic informants in mind, not my son’s school. In my capacity as 
folklorist, I am bound by this code of ethics; however, does it still apply to me in my capacity as 
concerned parent? Surely other folklorists have grappled with this sort of situation before. Determined 
to do the “right thing,” I leapt into action. Assuming the extant curriculum was the result of a lack of 
accurate information, I gathered historical accounts, along with age-appropriate lesson plans that 
present accurate historical evidence as well as alternative points of view (see Larson 
1979 and 1986; Ramsey 1979; Seale, Slapin, and Silverman [1995] 1998). I presumed that, if I merely 
provided clear documentation, along with an array of easy alternatives respectful of different 
perspectives, the teachers would surely want—or feel compelled—to change the way they approach the 
holiday. 
 
I met first with my son’s teacher, and later with the principal, outlining my concerns and offering 
examples of the alternative curriculum I had collected. The principal smiled politely and nodded 
continuously until I finished my impassioned plea. She then said something vague and noncommittal 
about the teachers “valuing their traditions” and choosing the “best educational activities” for our 
students. With tears welling up in my eyes, I begged of her “At the very least, don’t make the children 
dress up as Pilgrims and Indians. It’s so offensive.” Continuing to smile, the principal gently escorted 
me out of her office. A few days later, I received a letter from my son’s teacher, taped onto the folder 
of curriculum they returned to me. The letter explained that the Unit A teachers had reviewed the 
situation and wanted to be sensitive to my concerns. They showed me a list of activities planned and 
offered to remove my son from any activities that made me feel uncomfortable. 3 Pulling my son out of 
the classroom, however, was not the point. I wasn’t trying to shield my son; I wanted a paradigm shift, 
so that none of these students would be taught a racist myth as actual history. In my enthusiasm to 
spread the truth, however, I ran up against the power of tradition that, in this case, operates like a 
brick wall. The next day, my son stepped off the bus wearing an “Indian vest” –a brown paper bag torn 
for fringe and decorated with markers. When I inquired, he stuck a feather into his hair and said (in a 



voice meant to convey intellectual inferiority), “I-am-a-na-tive-a-mer-i-can.” This was an elaboration 
of the role he had played earlier when his class made costumes to reenact the First Thanksgiving myth. 
 
Is there a way out of this quagmire for people concerned about the postcolonial ethics of Thanksgiving 
and representation of American Indians? One chapter of my dissertation tackles this question, 
considering case studies in which people challenge Thanksgiving ideology (Roth 2010). This essay 
reflects on one of those case studies – the valiant, if naïve and ineffectual, efforts of a 
folklorist/parent to create fissures in the dominant Thanksgiving ideology. 
 
I said little the following November, other than grumbling to friends and colleagues, who were 
accustomed to my diatribes, and instead poured myself into my dissertation research, figuring I would 
save the world later. I had assumed too hastily that my advocacy effort had been a complete waste of 
time. To my surprise, several small, but significant, revisions were made to the Thanksgiving memo. 

Feast 2006. We will celebrate Thanksgiving with a feast on the afternoon of Tuesday, 
November 21st. We ask that students bring a healthy snack to share. We especially 
welcome snacks such as: cut fruits or vegetables, popcorn, raisins, corn bread or 
cheese. We will need volunteers to help us set up, serve, and clean up. We will begin 
setting up at 1:00 and plan to begin the feast at 1:15. If you are able to volunteer, 
please send a note to your child’s homeroom teacher. 

At first glance, the memos look more or less the same, but upon closer inspection, I see several 
changes worth mentioning. For one thing, the words “First Thanksgiving” were removed from the 2005 
memo, along with any reference to costumes or cameras, leaving me to wonder if my (perhaps 
awkward) intervention may have prompted the 2006 version. I wanted to believe that perhaps this 
signaled a shift, albeit a miniscule one, in the discourse surrounding Thanksgiving. For another, the 
celebration event went from being open to all parents to requiring a note to volunteer. Is it just 
parental paranoia, or could this have been intended to keep a meddling folklorist at bay? When I 
volunteered that year (after submitting the necessary note), I was disheartened to find that the only 
obvious change had, in fact, been the memo; the rest of the celebration was unchanged. As the kids 
filed into the auditorium, wearing Pilgrim and Indian costumes, teachers and parents gushed over how 
cute they looked. As painful as it was to see my son dressed as a grocery bag Indian two years in a row, 
I have to admit that, as a parent watching the event, it was also cute. It was hard not to smile and, 
indeed, all of the other parents were smiling and taking photographs. This is an example of how 
colonialism and racism can wear an innocent face, and hide the sad and ugly truth. Far from honoring 
American Indians, these activities add insult to injury by encouraging children to “play Indian” in order 
to celebrate the colonization of the Americas (see Dorris 1978; Ramsey 1979; Loewen 1991; Harvey et 
al. 1995; Reese 2006). 
 
Hidden beneath the veneer of paper costumes, the myth of the First Thanksgiving perpetuates 
falsehoods and a self-serving version of American history. With a few notable exceptions, the 
mainstream media, along with government and businesses, persistently present Thanksgiving’s benefits 

http://digest.champlain.edu/vol1/rn1_2.html#6
http://digest.champlain.edu/vol1/rn1_2.html#6


from the point of view of the European settlers/invaders. Since 1970, activists have sought a paradigm 
shift when approaching the holiday, hoping to challenge popular misconceptions (see Dorris 1979; Seale 
et al. 1998; Villaneuva 2004). 4 Although historical evidence actually does not support the feel-good 
message of friendliness and sharing that is inherent in the myth of the First Thanksgiving, not enough 
progress has been made to expand social awareness and historical accuracy. Many schools do not 
acknowledge the ethics of Thanksgiving, preferring instead to cling to the myth of the First 
Thanksgiving that has been conveniently perpetuated for over 150 years. The exceptions, which 
attempt to critique Thanksgiving ideology, are often characterized by the mainstream as radical. 
 
Although I do not have access to nation-wide school curricula, from what I can tell, there seems to be a 
range of Thanksgiving curricula in use today—from mildly innocuous to objectionable. For example, 
Janet Siskind writes about two schools in New Jersey. One was a parochial school, in which the teacher 
had researched the foods allegedly eaten at the so called “First Thanksgiving” and taught such spelling 
words as: turkey, sweet potatoes, squash, pumpkin pie. She taught about the Indians helping the 
Pilgrims, and acknowledged “the later battles as being due to the resistance of Indians to their lands 
being seized.” The school itself was decorated with turkeys, “each feather bearing a prayer.” The 
other school was not decorated with turkeys. Instead, “the teacher played Native American music and 
knew a great deal about Eastern groups. In an impromptu assembly, she showed slides of living Native 
Americans and asked the children to remember their ‘Indian forefathers’” (Siskind 1992 [2002]: 57; see 
also Reese 2006). 
 
If the history of the early Thanksgivings continues be taught in schools, then it should be taught from 
more than one perspective, and the painful truths that historians have brought to the fore about 
relations between Wampanoag and Pilgrims being marred by distrust and betrayal should be candidly 
addressed. Curriculum could focus on the fact that, before the arrival of Europeans in the seventeenth 
century, there were once an estimated ten million American Indians thriving on the lands north of 
Mexico. If the small band of Pilgrims losing a third of their members (57 out of 102 people) during the 
first winter is noteworthy, as the authors of many history text books seem to believe, what of the nine 
million American Indians who died from the plague brought by Europeans? Students could be asked to 
consider the point of view of the nine million, for whom the myth of Thanksgiving likely has mournful 
associations. One elementary school in Columbia, Missouri, took this approach. After reading Howard 
Zinn’s A People's History of the United States (1980), Eryca Neville (a graduate student at the 
University of Missouri at the time) and her sister Jonette Ford (a fifth-grade teacher at West Boulevard 
Elementary school) decided to do something drastically different. Neville had been examining general 
education requirements and reflects: “I respectfully submit that they [students] aren’t taught history. 
They are taught propaganda. And it is reinforced at the higher education level” (Neville 2010). Hoping 
to challenge this biased view of history, the sisters joined forces. Neville’s college-level social studies 
methods class started working with Ford’s fifth-grade social studies class in order to curate the exhibit 
“American History Through Indian Eyes” in 2005. The fifth graders studied civil rights history, with the 
college students spending half of their time assisting the fifth graders with their research projects. One 
area of the exhibit involved the myth of the First Thanksgiving. The collaboration was so successful 



that the two teachers have continued to use this classroom museum model. Both college and fifth-
grade students reported feeling betrayed upon learning of the history to which they had never before 
been exposed. These West Boulevard Elementary exhibits sought to provoke cognitive dissonance, for 
example, by including a wanted poster of Christopher Columbus that called him a thief and 
rapist. 5 The end of the exhibit was called, “We Are Still Here,” countering the stereotype of the 
disappearing Indian. The exhibit garnered a lot of positive publicity, and was well attended by 
students, teachers, parents, and community members. While similar exhibits have occurred at this 
school since, this approach to curriculum does not appear to have spread to other schools within the 
Columbia Public School system. 
 
As these different examples show, school curricula have the power either to intensify colonial ideology, 
or to broaden children’s awareness of the complexities of history and the diversity of human 
experience. Although alternative curricula are readily available, and schools could provide an antidote 
to the poisonous nature of the Thanksgiving myth, institutions like schools are homeostatic systems. 
Paradigm shifts, especially those impacting beloved traditions, do not occur without significant 
resistance, and the reaction to attempts to challenge curricular traditions can be intense. One parent, 
Michelle Raheja, learned this the hard way. Her situation demonstrates what is at stake in the 
negotiation over representation and the consequences of challenging a beloved tradition. In the fall of 
2008, Raheja sent a private e-mail to her daughter’s kindergarten teacher at Condit Elementary School, 
in Claremont, California, expressing concern over a forty-year-old non-continuous tradition with the 
neighboring Mountain View School, in which the children take turns dressing up as Pilgrims and Indians, 
meeting half-way for a Thanksgiving feast. "It's demeaning," Raheja (whose mother is a Seneca) wrote. 
"I'm sure you can appreciate the inappropriateness of asking children to dress up like slaves (and kind 
slave masters), or Jews (and friendly Nazis), or members of any other racial minority group who has 
struggled in our nation's history" (quoted in Mehta 2008). The issue made it to the Claremont School 
Board, which decided to continue the feast, but to disallow the costumes out of respect for Native 
American heritage. Few expected the backlash from other parents. 
 
Many parents ignored the school board, sending their kids to school in costumes as a form of protest. "I 
think it's ridiculous,” complained Kimberly Rogers, a pro-costume parent. “It's a longstanding tradition 
and the kids really enjoy it, so we're going overboard" (quoted in McMillan 2008). School officials did 
not remove the costumed kids. Additionally, parents on both sides of the issue protested outside Condit 
Elementary, with pro-costume parents accusing the school of capitulating to political correctness and 
the anti-costume parents accusing the school of perpetuating stereotypes. At the feast, one parent 
dressed as an Indian and "did a war dance” around Raheja’s daughter, telling the girl to "go to hell" 
(Woods II 2008; see also Raheja 2011). 
 
"What's offensive is there are harmful stereotypes that represent a harmful legacy of history that has 
been denied to indigenous people in this country. The true history of Thanksgiving is one of a 
massacre," said Klee Benally, who opposes the costumes (quoted in McMillan 2008). "I'm not saying that 
I necessarily agree with everything that happened was right. There are many things that happened," 



said one pro-costume parent. "But when those traditions are harmful to the community, why continue 
them?" Benally replied. “I don't understand why getting together to share a meal is harmful at all. This 
is why America is great, that we all can get together, different cultures, different ethnicities, we get 
together, and we share a meal together," said Kathy Brands, a pro-costume parent (quoted in McMillan 
2008). 
 
Nervous about the rising tension, school officials called the police to monitor the situation. Raheja 
received hundreds of e-mails and phone calls, many supportive, but many others filled with hateful 
epithets and racist jeers: "They go from being anxious about political correctness to calling me (an 
epithet). They don't know my daughter's name, but they've said hateful and disgusting things about my 
daughter" (quoted in Schmidt 2008). One caller hoped that Raheja’s daughter would get beat up at 
school, while “another celebrated genocide of Native Americans” (Mehta 2008). On the blogosphere, 
the discourse took an even sharper, more vindictive and racist tone (see Raheja 2010: 221-32).6 
 
Understandably, many educators are reticent to teach the whole truth to very young children. The 
colonization of the Americas was not a noble affair and, admittedly, confronting the myth of the First 
Thanksgiving takes the shine off of the venerated national holiday. Fortunately, one easy way to rid 
Thanksgiving of its colonial taint is by shifting curriculum away from “Pilgrims and Indians” altogether. 
If teachers want holiday curriculum to impart a feel-good message about friendship and sharing, they 
should avoid connecting Pilgrims and Indians to the holiday. Instead, curricula could be developed 
around values and traditions celebrated around the globe, such as agriculture, harvest, family 
togetherness, and gratitude. To me, as a foodways scholar, some of the most obvious alternatives to 
the First Thanksgiving myth lie in foodways activities, which can introduce the children to questions 
and experiences that render the motif of Pilgrims and Indians irrelevant. Some examples include: 

Paper Plate Meal. Students describe the menu of their family’s typical Thanksgiving 
meal (or another traditional family meal, if they don’t celebrate the holiday), coloring 
the meal on a paper plate, and then writing and talking about it. 

Plow to Platter, Field to Fork. Students learn about food systems, tracing the route 
taken by each food item to their tables. Older students could watch such documentary 
films as Harvest of Shame (1960), Food, Inc. (2009), and Fresh (2009), to spur 
discussions about the problems facing different the food system and possible solutions 
to those problems. 

Auto-ethnographies. Students conduct ethnographic studies of the Thanksgiving meal, 
taking detailed notes about the acquisition of food, food preparation, pre-meal 
activities, family stories, as well as the actual meal, dessert, and post-meal activities. 
Reviewing these notes, students begin to appreciate the role that ritual plays in their 
own lives. Older students could use their own family’s meal to examine gender 
dynamics, the division of labor, and meal rituals. By sharing their reports with others, 
students are exposed to the diversity of traditions included in this holiday. 

“Protecting children from racism,” says Michael Dorris, “is every bit as important as insuring that they 
avoid playing with electrical sockets. Poison is poison, and ingrained oppressive cultural attitudes are 
at least as hard to antidote, once implanted, as are imbibed cleaning fluids” (1991:78). Above all, he 
adds, “no information about native people is truly preferable to a reiteration of the same old 



stereotypes, particularly in the early grades” (1991:78). Rather than reproducing stereotypical images 
of “Pilgrims” and “Indians,” we need curricular alternatives. “The antidote to feel-good history is not 
feel-bad history,” reminds James Loewen, “but honest and inclusive history” (1991:82). Since the 
mainstream presentation of the holiday is so singularly biased toward the colonizer, “it is particularly 
important that the schools stress the other perspectives” (Ramsey 1979:54). As a parent and a 
folklorist, I feel a personal obligation to confront the transmission of negative stereotypes through 
narrative and ritual. In the case of a school curriculum that unwittingly promotes falsehoods, 
ethnocentrism, and negative stereotypes, folklorists have an ethical obligation to put their 
considerable skills to work, offering information that might counteract the Eurocentric version of the 
history our children learn. Even modest advocacy attempts can have a ripple effect. As folklorists, we 
can provide an antidote through a curriculum that broadens children’s awareness of the complexities of 
history and the diversity of human experience. 
 
References Cited 

AFS Statement on Ethics: Principles of Professional Responsibility. 1988. AFSNews, New 
Series17 (1). http://www.afsnet.org/?page=Ethics, accessed 3/26/12. 

Appelbaum, Diana Karter. 1984. Thanksgiving: An American Holiday, An American History. 

New York: Facts on File Publications. 

Dorris, Michael. 1978. Why I’m Not Thankful for Thanksgiving. In Rethinking Columbus: 
The Next 500 Years, ed. Bill Bigelow and Bob Peterson. Milwaukee: Rethinking Schools. 

Georges, Robert A., and Michael Owen Jones. 1995. Folkloristics: An Introduction. 
Bloomington: University of Indiana Press. 

Harvey, Karen D., Lisa D. Harjo, and Lynda Welborn. 1995. Teaching about Holidays. In 
How to Teach about American Indians, ed. Karen D. Harvey, Lisa D. Harjo, and Lynda 
Welborn. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press. 

James, Wampsutta (Frank B). 1970. Thanksgiving: The National Day of Mourning. 
http://www.nativevillage.org/Inspiration-
/Thanksgiving%20The%20National%20Day%20of%20Mourning.htm, accessed 3/25/12 

Larson, Chuck. 1979. There Are Many Thanksgiving Stories to Tell. In Rethinking Columbus: 
The Next 500 Years, ed. Bill Bigelow and Bob Peterson. Milwaukee: Rethinking Schools. 

---. 1986. Introduction. In Teaching about Thanksgiving, ed. John Burrows. The Fourth 
World Documentation Project, http://www.202tech.com/thanks/temp.html, accessed 
8/5/05. 

Loewen, James. 1991. Plagues and Pilgrims: The Truth about the First Thanksgiving. In 
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McMillan, Rob. 2008. Thanksgiving Costumes Banned at School. ABS Local News 11/25/08, 
http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/local/los_angeles&id=6525441 , 
accessed 12/1/08. 



Mehta, Seema. 2008. Insulting Stereotype, or Harmless Holiday Feast? District Agrees to 
Drop Costumes from Kindergarten Thanksgiving Party. Some Parents Insist It's Political 
Correctness Gone Awry. Los Angeles Times, Nov. 25. 
http://articles.latimes.com/2008/nov/25/local/me-thanksgiving25, accessed 6/24/2009. 

Neville, Eryca. 2010. Personal communication. Oct. 27th. 

Pleck, Elizabeth H. 1999. The Making of the Domestic Occasion: The History of 
Thanksgiving in the United States. Journal of Social History 32(4): 773-89. 

Ramsey, Patricia. 1979. Beyond ‘Ten Little Indians’ and ‘Turkeys’ Alternative Approaches 
to Thanksgiving. Young Children 34(6): 28-32,49-52. 

Rajeha, Michelle H. 2010. Epilogue. In Reservation Reelism: Redfacing, Visual Sovereignty, 
and Representations of Native Americans in Film, pp. 221-40. Lincoln: University of 
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Reese, Debbie. 2006. Those Thanksgiving Lesson Plans, 
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Roth, LuAnne K. 2010. Talking Turkey: Visual Media and the Unraveling of Thanksgiving. 
Ph.D. Dissertation. University of Missouri. 

Schmidt, Rob. 2008. Playing Indian for Thanksgiving: Claremont parents clash over 
kindergarten Thanksgiving costumes. 
http://newspaperrock.bluecorncomics.com/2008/11/playing-indian-for-
thanksgiving.html, accessed 10/23/10. 

Seale, Doris (Santee/Cree), Bevery Slapin, and Carolyn Silverman (Cherokee), eds. 1998. 
Thanksgiving: A Native Perspective. Berkely: Oyate. 

Silvey, Janese. 2010. Americans Hang on to Thanksgiving Myths. Columbia Daily Tribune, 
Nov. 23. http://www.columbiatribune.com/news/2010/nov/24/americans-hang-on-to-
thanksgiving-myths/, accessed 11/25/10. 

Siskind, Janet. [1992] 2002. The Invention of Thanksgiving: A Ritual of American 
Nationality. In Food in the USA: A Reader, ed. Carole M. Counihan, pp. 41-58. New York: 
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Smith, Andrew F. 2006. The Turkey: An American Story. Chicago: University of Illinois 
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Villanueva, Ricardo. 2004. The Day of Mourning/Pilgrim Progress in Plymouth, USA. In 
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Notes 
1. Beyond debating the reasons why I refer to the story for the First Thanksgiving as myth 
and not, for example, as legend or actual history is the subject of another article. 
Interested parties may refer to sources that address the history (e.g., Loewen 1991; 
Siskind [1992] 2002; Pleck 1999; Roth 2010). 

2. This essay is excerpted from the conclusion of my dissertation, Talking Turkey: Visual 
Media and the Unraveling of Thanksgiving, which addresses three case studies in which 
individuals attempt to challenge representations of the master narrative and the 
prevailing Thanksgiving ideology (Roth 2010). 

3. Other things they were learning that day included less objectionable topics, such as the 
Mayflower’s journey, Native Americans tribes in Missouri, hunting and harvesting, and a 
Native American game. 

4. For example, in 1970, on the occasion of the 350th anniversary of the Pilgrim 
landing/invasion of Wampanoag land, a speech by Wampsutta (Frank B.) James was 
suppressed by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. In response, supporters organized the 
first Day of Mourning event (see James 1970; Villanueva 2004). 

5. The section that received some of the strongest pushback was the exhibit that critiqued 
Indian stereotypes, which included the popular children’s books Little House on the Prairie 
(Wilder 1932-1943) and The Indian in the Cupboard (Banks 1980), which are part of fourth 
grade curriculum in the Columbia Public Schools. “Somebody stole the materials from the 
exhibit because they did not want it to be taught!” Neville says. 

Besides the anti-Indian rhetoric embedded within some of these comments, Raheja was 
most startled by the fact that the e-mail she wrote to her daughter's teacher was 
circulated without her permission to other parents and to the media, along with her 
name: “What it does is it effectively silences any parent in the future who has legitimate 
concerns with the school because who would want to be the target of this much hate over 
something that was actually so small?” she says, adding that the matter “could have easily 
been taken care of within the confines of the school” (quoted in Mehta 2008). Raheja’s 
experience is a reminder of the power of tradition and its ability to suppress challenges to 
it. I watched nervously as similarly vitriolic comments rolled in response to a front-page 
story, “Americans Hang on to Thanksgiving Myths,” appeared in the Columbia Tribune on 
Thanksgiving Day (see Silvey 2010). 


