“Nothing,” Chich said, smiling at our creation and back at me. “It’s a gift.”
“¡Ay, qué generosa!” Mrs. Hernández clutched her heart. “If you ever need anything, anything at all, please ask. Muchas gracias.”
20 Pilgrims & Indians
Sometimes Budlong Elementary felt like the boarding school that Chich’s mother had gone to long ago. No one seemed to respect our language, culture or stories. We celebrated Thanksgiving at Budlong, another holiday no one back home in Grand Ronde observed. The teachers at school prepared a play where classes acted out various parts of the “First Thanksgiving” celebration. They sorted students according to who would be best as Pilgrims and Indians. Guess which part I got to play?
“I wouldn’t laugh if I were you,” Keith said, annoyed at my chuckling over his tall, black-buckled hat and oversized white collar. He grabbed my fake buckskin vest, made from a brown grocery sack, and accidently pulled off one of the paper fringes. “I hate my lines in this play.”
“Too bad you can’t wear your real Indian costume,” Richard said as he passed by, sporting a multicolor construction-paper headdress and a brown-paper-bag vest nearly identical to mine. Mine had Keith’s bright crayon drawing of “Indian” symbols he learned through Boy Scouts, which looked nothing like those I knew from home.
I sighed. “We don’t wear costumes, Richard. It’s awful we have to wear these silly paper bags at all.”
“Why, you look just like a real Indian,” said one of the mothers helping us get ready. She fingered my braids and then painted red lines on both my cheeks with her lipstick. I stared down at the classroom floor.
“That’s because she is,” said Alice, smirking in the Pilgrim costume her mother made. She twirled around in a long black dress with a white apron and bonnet.
Mama, Chich, and Miss Elsie came to our afternoon performance in Budlong’s auditorium. Each grade had a five-minute segment to present as part of the First Thanksgiving story. Here at Budlong, the way each grade had their classes perform, you would think that the Indians were starving before the white men arrived and that the Pilgrims came to their rescue.
For the fourth grade, Addie’s class sang a song about how the Indians danced for the Pilgrims at the celebration, whooping and leaping around in a circle. I’d never seen or heard about any Indian dancing like the song described. Peewee’s class selected her to share the drawing she made demonstrating how the Indians lived before the Pilgrims’ ship landed. She drew mothers cooking, fathers bringing in fish, and kids playing. At least that seemed true.
Our class followed with Richard, our “chief,” leading twelve of us “Indians” onstage. He strutted around, nodding to each of us. Then Miss Davies gave us the signal to sit on the floor, legs crossed.
The Pilgrims, headed by Keith and Alice, came onstage. “Chief ” Richard got up to meet them.
“Thank you for inviting us to join you,” said Keith.
“Welcome to this land,” Richard replied.
Keith nervously adjusted his big collar and hat. The hat was slipping down on his ears. I giggled. He screwed up his nose at me before looking back at Richard. “Your people and my people will share bread on this day,” he said. “You will teach us how to plant corn and pumpkins.”
“And we who are civilized will teach you our ways,” added Alice, handing over a Bible, “so you will become civilized too.”
Then the Pilgrims placed a long table on the stage. Keith stood at the head of it, semi-mumbling, “Thank you, God, for allowing us to teach these savages our ways. Amen.”
Us “Indians” then had to get up and do a “welcome dance” that, again, didn’t look like anything I had heard of or seen back home.
I glanced up and saw Chich’s back stiffen as she watched us.
As we all walked home, Chich put one of those little white pills under her tongue to settle her heart while Mama and Miss Elsie walked
quietly behind us. No one wanted to talk about the play, and I was fine with that. I tried rubbing the red stripes off my cheeks, but nothing worked. Once we got inside the house, Chich smoothed Mama’s cold cream on them and the lipstick came right off. But I wasn’t sure I’d ever forget this day or what those stripes felt like.
21 Thanksgiving Day
Despite what had happened at school, Thanksgiving went way better at home.
Early Thanksgiving morning, Daddy shook our bed and flipped back our quilts. “Get up or you’ll miss it!”
I rubbed my eyes as my feet touched the cool wooden floor. “We’ll miss what?” I mumbled.
“Hurry!”
Peewee and I dragged our half-awake bodies into the living room. The smell of a roasting turkey filled the air.
And now here comes Popeye, flexing his muscles down Broadway in New York City!
The television, that previously dead box with spilled innards, displayed a giant balloon of this cartoon character — complete with corncob pipe and anchors tattooed on his arms, squinting one eye. So many people were needed to hold the balloon close to the ground with long ropes.
“You got the television to work!” I shouted. I’d known Daddy was smart, but I hadn’t known he was that smart.
Chich poked her head in from the kitchen just in time for another balloon to pass across the screen. “It almost looks like you’re right there,” she said, holding some unpeeled potatoes.
Peewee and I grabbed our cornflakes and sat on the floor to watch the rest of the parade. We hollered toward the kitchen every time a big float or another balloon passed in front of the camera. A group of dancers called the Rockettes performed for the first time
