I'm thankful for YAL: Hearts Unbroken and what Thanksgiving means to me by Rebecca Chatham-Vazquez
| Welcome to the second November Weekend Pick! Dr. Rebecca Chatham-Vazquez is an assistant professor and the director of English Education at North Dakota State University, where she is living her dream, teaching Methods courses and Young Adult Literature and mentoring preservice English teachers. She is in her 15th year of teaching and loves it just as much now as she did on day one. She has taught and worked with pre- and in-service teachers in Montana (very rural), Arkansas (urban), Arizona (urban and rural), and, now, North Dakota (urban and rural). She has been a member of NCTE since 2008, and is a strong supporter of professional organizations like NCTE, its state affiliates, and ALAN. Her research interests include teacher education, rural teacher support, YAL, and methods of teaching reading. She can be reached at [email protected] |  |
When I was seven, my parents got divorced. It didn’t happen overnight, obviously; it actually took two years, and, in that time, the judge worked to find an agreeable custody arrangement…unfortunately, the judge didn’t really take me and my brother into account while doing that, and the result was two years of upheaval, tears, and stress on everyone involved. Once the arrangement was set, though, it was something we adhered to for years. In particular, I remember our holiday schedule: Thanksgiving with Dad, Christmas with Mom (my mom’s birthday is Christmas Eve), New Years with Dad, back to Mom’s when school returned to session in January. This holiday schedule was something I lived by, relied on, and the first time I didn’t spend holidays with my parents, in that order, was HARD. This type of scheduling rigidity was something I counted on, a stabilizing force throughout the ups and downs of adolescence, college, and my early years of teaching. I know the way things are when we are growing up isn’t the way things will always be, but the loss of that holiday schedule was difficult for me (yes, I know how absolutely privileged I was to have two parents, to have two homes, to have parents who wanted to spend time with me, and to have parents with the ability to to keep up that kind of schedule, and so much more).
As I entered my mid-20s and spent holidays away from family, I figured my way through and found ways to keep the joy in Thanksgiving, in particular. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday: there’s no gift giving or buying, no religious ceremonies to attend, no work, it’s the time of year for NCTE (the National Council of Teachers of English Annual Convention), I can put gravy on everything I eat with zero questions asked…what’s not to love? Well, probably the racism, the erasure of Native peoples from the history books, the white-washing of our past and the origins of Thanksgiving as times of peace and love between colonists and Native Americans…ya know, just those really big things. My tone may sound flippant here, but I promise that it is not.
I’m not going to take a deep dive into the history of Thanksgiving because, I imagine, you already know anything that I could tell you.[1] Furthermore, I am privileged to say, Thanksgiving’s origins were not integral to my family’s celebration of the holiday. I remember learning about pilgrims as a young elementary school student, but I also attended Catholic school in Montana, and it’s pretty difficult to be Catholic in Montana and not have a solid knowledge of how Catholics treated Native Americans (and millions of other people illogically and wrongly deemed “savages”) throughout history, so, from what I remember, we did not romanticize the first Thanksgiving through plays or anything of that sort at school. And we definitely didn’t do any of that at home. Thanksgiving was pretty much just about food at our house.
I’m not going to take a deep dive into the history of Thanksgiving because, I imagine, you already know anything that I could tell you.[1] Furthermore, I am privileged to say, Thanksgiving’s origins were not integral to my family’s celebration of the holiday. I remember learning about pilgrims as a young elementary school student, but I also attended Catholic school in Montana, and it’s pretty difficult to be Catholic in Montana and not have a solid knowledge of how Catholics treated Native Americans (and millions of other people illogically and wrongly deemed “savages”) throughout history, so, from what I remember, we did not romanticize the first Thanksgiving through plays or anything of that sort at school. And we definitely didn’t do any of that at home. Thanksgiving was pretty much just about food at our house.
When I began to celebrate Thanksgiving on my own and learn even more about the history of our country, I thought deeply about this holiday and how I might celebrate it moving forward in my life. Growing up, it had been an important celebration with my dad, a break from school, and a time to celebrate food. When I moved away, I wanted Thanksgiving to be a time spent with friends, feeding them and caring for them, making them feel at home. So that’s what I started to do: I began with small dinner parties when I lived in Arkansas. When my partner and I moved to Arizona, we decided to start the tradition there, too. I wanted to invite my fellow graduate students because (1) no one in graduate school can afford to go home for holidays, and (2) I wanted the international students to eat really good food and have a warm home to go to over the Thanksgiving break.
During our time in Arizona, we hosted Thanksgiving every year (except in 2020) for between 25 and 35 people. I cooked some traditional dishes (turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, cranberry chutney, and, of course, pearl onions in cream sauce!), and everyone else brought dishes that might be considered traditional Thanksgiving fare OR, and even better, dishes from their home towns in countries such as Thailand, Korea, Russia, Brazil, and Mexico. We all came together to see old friends, find new friends, and to eat, relax, and find joy together. After my dad passed away in November of 2019, celebrating this holiday, which had always been ours, with my friends in Arizona kept me going and helped with my grief. It was a very special time.
During our time in Arizona, we hosted Thanksgiving every year (except in 2020) for between 25 and 35 people. I cooked some traditional dishes (turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, cranberry chutney, and, of course, pearl onions in cream sauce!), and everyone else brought dishes that might be considered traditional Thanksgiving fare OR, and even better, dishes from their home towns in countries such as Thailand, Korea, Russia, Brazil, and Mexico. We all came together to see old friends, find new friends, and to eat, relax, and find joy together. After my dad passed away in November of 2019, celebrating this holiday, which had always been ours, with my friends in Arizona kept me going and helped with my grief. It was a very special time.
Now, I bet at this point you are saying to yourself, “Okay, Becca, we get it: you love Thanksgiving. Enough already. What the heck does this have to do with Young Adult Literature and why should we care?!??!” Fair questions.
I told you all of this to show that how and why we celebrate holidays is deeply personal and often not at all connected to why the holiday exists or what the existence of that holiday can do. But, the mere existence of this holiday can cause pain to people we care about.
How do we move forward when we know traditions are deeply embedded and personal but we also know that the continuation of those traditions can be harmful? What do we do when the school districts we teach in or that we send our children into perpetuate Native erasure and a very rosy version of how America was colonized?
Listen. To Native American voices.
Listen. To Native American voices.
Listen. To Native American voices.
And not just during the month of November.
I told you all of this to show that how and why we celebrate holidays is deeply personal and often not at all connected to why the holiday exists or what the existence of that holiday can do. But, the mere existence of this holiday can cause pain to people we care about.
How do we move forward when we know traditions are deeply embedded and personal but we also know that the continuation of those traditions can be harmful? What do we do when the school districts we teach in or that we send our children into perpetuate Native erasure and a very rosy version of how America was colonized?
Listen. To Native American voices.
Listen. To Native American voices.
Listen. To Native American voices.
And not just during the month of November.
How does YA connect to the issues of Thanksgiving and Awareness of Indigenes Peoples.
This is where Young Adult Literature comes in. I first encountered Cynthia Leitich Smith’s work when I read Rain is not My Indian Name in my Young Adult Literature (YAL) course back in Fall 2007. I had lost my older sister to a drug overdose in September 2007. Needless to say, a YAL course may not have been the best at the time, since, as we all know, YAL books often feature characters dealing with death and loss. I distinctly remember writing to my professor and telling her that all these books dealt with death and that I just couldn’t read much more. But I continued on with my professor’s understanding and support (she encouraged me to read what I could and provided me with some alternate texts) and made it through.
Over the past almost 20 years, I have returned to those moments in 2007 over and over again as inspiration for my own teaching and reading. But, when I picked up Hearts Unbroken, I didn’t expect to see Rain again or to be transported back in time to those fall days of 2007. What a different time I am living in now and what a different reader I am, too!
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I’m probably late to this bandwagon since the book was published in 2018, but I have to say, “WOW!” to Hearts Unbroken. Cyn has absolutely done it again. Just as she did in Rain is not My Indian Name and has done in her other novels, Cyn weaves together a story that encompasses and portrays whole people and communities. Her novels center characters, and those characters experience the world, which is full of ups and downs, challenges and successes, and varied social issues. Louise, the main character of Hearts Unbroken, isn’t just a girl or just a Native American or just a high schooler. Cyn makes her a real person, with an intersectional - (hyperlink to this definition: https://www.britannica.com/topic/intersectionality ) - identity, who faces a variety of challenges: romantic relationships gone awry, friendships that need mending, sibling support, racism towards Native Americans (on the personal level, the community level, and the national level), sexism, the privilege that accompanies socioeconomic status, and more. Louise doesn’t gracefully meet each challenge because she is a real human being. But she does learn from them. She does become a more introspective person. She does consciously decide to make changes and to stand up for herself and others.
It’s amazing to live beside her through this novel. Accompanying Louise through the first couple of months of her senior year, we watch her become a solid journalist for the school newspaper; we see her school drama department have a reckoning with its history of exclusionary casting; we see how intertwined schools and communities are and how censorship and first amendment rights live in the high school classroom; we live through tough conversations about immigration, racism, sex, and censorship.
It’s amazing to live beside her through this novel. Accompanying Louise through the first couple of months of her senior year, we watch her become a solid journalist for the school newspaper; we see her school drama department have a reckoning with its history of exclusionary casting; we see how intertwined schools and communities are and how censorship and first amendment rights live in the high school classroom; we live through tough conversations about immigration, racism, sex, and censorship.
Cynthia seamlessly integrates the English and Mvskoke languages, accurately portrays the cultural setting of suburban Kansas, and effectively uses a really cool structural device throughout the novel – excerpts from Louise’s school newspaper – to keep the reader in Louise’s space.
Louise presents the reader with a beautiful example of what it looks like to make mistakes, listen, challenge oneself, and evaluate one’s beliefs. Cynthia takes her characters one by one, crafting real individuals that readers can relate to. What’s quite important here is that the characters are just that: individuals. Louise isn’t meant to represent all young Mvskoke girls; her family isn’t meant to represent every Mvskoke family. Joey isn’t meant to represent every Lebanese American. As we read, we are also learning to see people as individuals rather than groups as monoliths, all the same.
Louise presents the reader with a beautiful example of what it looks like to make mistakes, listen, challenge oneself, and evaluate one’s beliefs. Cynthia takes her characters one by one, crafting real individuals that readers can relate to. What’s quite important here is that the characters are just that: individuals. Louise isn’t meant to represent all young Mvskoke girls; her family isn’t meant to represent every Mvskoke family. Joey isn’t meant to represent every Lebanese American. As we read, we are also learning to see people as individuals rather than groups as monoliths, all the same.
Back to Thanksgiving
The reason this novel clicked for me at this time of year as I read it is it ends with Louise’s family celebrating Thanksgiving…but in their own way.
In the second-to-last chapter, Louise asks her boyfriend Joey if his parents, who are Arab American, believe in Christmas. He says they do, and Louise reflects internally, “It struck me, …, how much I didn’t know that I didn’t know” (281). With this scene, Cynthia has Louise model for the reader what it looks like to ask questions, to listen to the answers, to use the tools available to us (Louise also uses Google in this scene to get more information for herself about Islam, Christianity, and Arab Americans), and to be open to NOT knowing things.
In the second-to-last chapter, Louise asks her boyfriend Joey if his parents, who are Arab American, believe in Christmas. He says they do, and Louise reflects internally, “It struck me, …, how much I didn’t know that I didn’t know” (281). With this scene, Cynthia has Louise model for the reader what it looks like to ask questions, to listen to the answers, to use the tools available to us (Louise also uses Google in this scene to get more information for herself about Islam, Christianity, and Arab Americans), and to be open to NOT knowing things.
At the end of the novel (spoiler ahead***), a tornado disrupts the annual Turkey Trot run, which Louise and Joey are covering for their school newspaper, and during which, of course, many of the runners who are Caucasian dress in Native American headdresses. This shocks Joey, but Louise is expecting it and braces herself for it. Rather than the holiday of Thanksgiving itself having an effect on Louise, it’s actually how some of the Turkey Trot runners have chosen to dress and celebrate that day that is the problem. Louise is prepared to see this kind of racist dress on Thanksgiving; Joey isn’t. Louise takes it in stride, but, as the reader, we realize she shouldn’t have to.
After Louise and Joey have survived the tornado and are going to head home, Louise invites Joey and his mom to her cousin Rain’s house for Thanksgiving dinner, telling him that “everybody’s welcome” (279). When they arrive at Rain’s house, Louise tells the reader, “I spotted Dmitri and Marie carrying out platters of food, Hughie playing horseshoes with Shelby. The puppies frolicked in the grass with Rain’s black Lab.
Mama and Daddy waved like they hadn’t seen me in years. I waved back.
I love who I am. I love my family, my friends, my Native Nation. I love Kansas. And chances are pretty kick-ass that I love Joey, too.
Pu fvckvkes. We are happy.
Mama and Daddy waved like they hadn’t seen me in years. I waved back.
I love who I am. I love my family, my friends, my Native Nation. I love Kansas. And chances are pretty kick-ass that I love Joey, too.
Pu fvckvkes. We are happy.
My arm circled his waist. His arm circled my shoulders. He asked, ‘Do Native people believe in Thanksgiving?’
I kissed him. ‘We believe in gratitude.’” (285-286)
Cynthia’s style of writing puts the reader inside the character’s head and lets us live with them for the duration of the book. To read Louise and Joey asking questions of each other, working to understand the other’s background, learning from each other…what a joy! This is exactly how we move forward, I think. We listen to and learn from one another. We admit mistakes. We are open to growth. We see one another as individuals. We center people other than ourselves.
I kissed him. ‘We believe in gratitude.’” (285-286)
Cynthia’s style of writing puts the reader inside the character’s head and lets us live with them for the duration of the book. To read Louise and Joey asking questions of each other, working to understand the other’s background, learning from each other…what a joy! This is exactly how we move forward, I think. We listen to and learn from one another. We admit mistakes. We are open to growth. We see one another as individuals. We center people other than ourselves.
One thing I am grateful for, already this month is, that this was the first book I picked up for my month of weekend picks because it gave me time to be introspective about how I have grown in how I see the world and relate to others, process issues, and approach challenges. It helped me articulate my thoughts about Thanksgiving and its importance to me but also to decenter that for myself and consider its effects on others, on people I might not even know. It also confirmed for me that, about any issue, there will be so many different points of view. We are all individuals. There will be Native Americans who have traditions around Thanksgiving, just as Louise’s family does. There will be people like me who love Thanksgiving and who also see that its portrayal of early American history is problematic and is something we must move away from. There will be people like the Turkey trotters in the book who wear Native American traditional regalia as a costume, something we know is wrong and racist. It’s books like Hearts Unbroken and so many others written by Native Americans, centering Native Americans, that provide an empathy-building space to make it so young people can learn about and have discussions about all of these types of people. This book centers Louise and puts us in her life. What better way to understand the joys and harms another person experiences than through their own eyes?
One thing I am grateful, for already this month is, that this was the first book I picked up for my month of weekend picks because it gave me time to be introspective about how I have grown in how I see the world and relate to others, process issues, and approach challenges. It helped me articulate my thoughts about Thanksgiving and its importance to me but also to decenter that for myself and consider its effects on others, on people I might not even know. It also confirmed for me that, about any issue, there will be so many different points of view. We are all individuals. There will be Native Americans who have traditions around Thanksgiving, just as Louise’s family does.
There will be people like me who love Thanksgiving and who also see that its portrayal of early American history is problematic and is something we must move away from. There will be people like the Turkey trotters in the book who wear Native American traditional regalia as a costume, something we know is wrong and racist. It’s books like Hearts Unbroken and so many others written by Native Americans, centering Native Americans, that provide an empathy-building space to make it so young people can learn about and have discussions about all of these types of people. This book centers Louise and puts us in her life. What better way to understand the joys and harms another person experiences than through their own eyes?
There will be people like me who love Thanksgiving and who also see that its portrayal of early American history is problematic and is something we must move away from. There will be people like the Turkey trotters in the book who wear Native American traditional regalia as a costume, something we know is wrong and racist. It’s books like Hearts Unbroken and so many others written by Native Americans, centering Native Americans, that provide an empathy-building space to make it so young people can learn about and have discussions about all of these types of people. This book centers Louise and puts us in her life. What better way to understand the joys and harms another person experiences than through their own eyes?
The thing is traditions are personal. I do love the time of Thanksgiving, the food, the friends, the memories of cooking with my dad, eating my gramma’s cornbread stuffing, learning how to make gravy and pearl onions on my own. I want to share those memories and foods with my daughter. I want to make my home a welcoming space to my colleagues and students here in North Dakota and Minnesota. I want to put my feet up and eat a pile of food covered in a pound of gravy when I come home from NCTE. But I can do those things anytime, too. I don’t necessarily have to do them in the last week of November. I probably will, as long as I have the time off to do that much cooking at that time and as long as climate change lets where I live stay cold in November.
So, yeah, traditions are personal…but so is reading. Words dive into our minds and souls and help us understand ourselves and the world.[1] What better way to begin to ask and answer questions and to challenge our own ways of being and thinking than to read a book? Thanks, Cyn, for giving us and our students a book that helps us listen, that helps us think, that gives us space to build empathy, and that helps us move forward together. This month and throughout the year, let’s all read books that center Native American voices and the voices of individuals we want to know more deeply. And, this month, in particular, let’s agree that we can all believe in gratitude and that, together, we can go from there
Footnotes
[1] If you are interested in learning more, see what the History Channel (https://www.history.com/topics/thanksgiving/history-of-thanksgiving ) and the Potawatomi Nation (https://www.potawatomi.org/blog/2020/11/25/the-true-dark-history-of-thanksgiving/ ) have to say about Thanksgiving’s origins during colonization, the Civil War, and the Great Depression.
[2] See Rudine Sims Bishop’s “Windows, Mirrors, and Sliding Glass Doors” and “Globalization and English Education” part II, paragraph 3 for more on this concept.
[1] If you are interested in learning more, see what the History Channel (https://www.history.com/topics/thanksgiving/history-of-thanksgiving ) and the Potawatomi Nation (https://www.potawatomi.org/blog/2020/11/25/the-true-dark-history-of-thanksgiving/ ) have to say about Thanksgiving’s origins during colonization, the Civil War, and the Great Depression.
[2] See Rudine Sims Bishop’s “Windows, Mirrors, and Sliding Glass Doors” and “Globalization and English Education” part II, paragraph 3 for more on this concept.
References
A&E Television Networks. (2024, January 31). Thanksgiving 2023 ‑ tradition, origins & meaning. History.com. https://www.history.com/topics/thanksgiving/history-of-thanksgiving
Citizen Potawatomi Nation Public Information Office. (2022, November 21). The true, dark history of Thanksgiving. Potawatomi.org. https://www.potawatomi.org/blog/2020/11/25/the-true-dark-history-of-thanksgiving/
Conference on English Education (2007). Globalization and English education. [attached as PDF]
Sims Bishop, R. (Summer 1990). Mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors. Perspectives: Choosing and using books for the classroom, 6(3). https://scenicregional.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Mirrors-Windows-and-Sliding-Glass-Doors.pdf
A&E Television Networks. (2024, January 31). Thanksgiving 2023 ‑ tradition, origins & meaning. History.com. https://www.history.com/topics/thanksgiving/history-of-thanksgiving
Citizen Potawatomi Nation Public Information Office. (2022, November 21). The true, dark history of Thanksgiving. Potawatomi.org. https://www.potawatomi.org/blog/2020/11/25/the-true-dark-history-of-thanksgiving/
Conference on English Education (2007). Globalization and English education. [attached as PDF]
Sims Bishop, R. (Summer 1990). Mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors. Perspectives: Choosing and using books for the classroom, 6(3). https://scenicregional.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Mirrors-Windows-and-Sliding-Glass-Doors.pdf
IMPORTANT NOTE ***** I would like to thank my sensitivity reader, Baylee LaCompte (Hunkpapa and Sicangu Lakota, Standing Rock Sioux Tribe), for her hard work in reading and responding to this post with trust and honesty. Baylee received her MS in American Indian Studies with focuses on Indigenous Rights and Social Justice, from Arizona State University and is currently the Title VI coordinator for a public school in South Dakota. As Cynthia and other Mvskoke speakers would say, “Mvto,” my friend.
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