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Should our kids dress like pilgrims and Indians?

Thanksgiving pilgrimsDid your little ones head off to school for Thanksgiving feasts today with Native American-style headgear, or a pilgrim hat?

At one California school, there's a serious flap about whether such holiday dress is demeaning to Native Americans, instead of promoting the spirit of understanding that Thanksgiving is supposed to be about.

I must say that my son was very enthusiastic about the headdress he made yesterday. And in prior years he has made a seriously cute pilgrim.

What do you think?

(AP Photo/Bloomsburg Press Enterprise, Bill Hughes)

Posted by Kate Shatzkin at 10:28 AM | | Comments (3)
        

Comments

I see nothing wrong with children dressing up in pilgram and native american dress. This will help to teach them how Thanksgiving got started and what the meaning of it is. I feel the US population has gone way over board on concerns about impacts to various groups and we are moving very rapidly away from what this country has stood for.

I have always felt that dressing as an ethnic group is wrong. Most costumes are caricatures anyway.

As a Native American teacher in a public school system, this is the exact disregard for history that we are trying to over come. It is not that we don't believe in a day for giving thanks, or to take time and connect with our families, it is that the whole idea of Indians helping the pilgrims and the pilgrims being so thankful for their help is a lie. We are just asking that everyone take a true look into the history of this day of "thanks" and see it for what it is. A day where the "pilgrims" celebrated the killings of tens of thousands of Pequat Indians. To continueously perpetuate the myth of thanksgiving is what disturbs Native Americans along with little non-native children putting on head dresses. Does anyone know what the "head dress" means? I didn't think so. Would you celebrate a national holiday and dress up as slaves, or put black face on?

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About Kate Shatzkin
Kate Shatzkin is the parenting and families content editor at The Baltimore Sun and, before that, was its family beat reporter. But her most challenging and rewarding job is being mother to Leah, 8, and Sam, 6.

In her 14 years at The Baltimore Sun, Kate also has covered nonprofit organizations, prisons and courts, and has written several investigative series. She was previously a Knight journalism fellow at Yale Law School and a reporter at the Seattle Times and at the Patriot-Ledger of Quincy, Mass. She lives in Baltimore with her family.

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