In Search of the American Dream: Acknowledging Our Past

Tweet

The Traveling Writer Takes You Back

By Norma Jaeger Hopcraft

For Thanksgiving, I'd like to take you back to my bus journey circumnavigating the continental U.S.  I ended that seven-week trip on Thanksgiving Day, with a visit to Plymouth Rock.

Statue of Massasoit, Chief of the Wampanoags, the tribe that enabled the Pilgrims survive their first winter, on Cole's Hill, overlooking Plymouth Harbor.
More pics at the links underlined below.

Every year, Native Americans gather at the Rock to protest the theft and murder by which the Europeans turned this country into America. It's sponsored by United American Indians of New England (UAINE). I met Native Americans at the protest who came all the way from Montana to attend.

You can see pics from the event here. 

While I was at Plymouth Rock, I visited a replica of the Mayflower. It's a very small ship. When it landed in 1620, it wasn't the first time Europeans set foot on North America, but the colony founded at Plymouth turned out to be the only one that lasted -- and grew. See pics of the ersatz Mayflower here.

Making a New American Dream

Now that we're here in North America, with the damage done to the native peoples, let's each help a disadvantaged person this Thanksgiving weekend. Or how about just helping with the dishes? You'll be helping someone's American Dream come true -- of a chance to relax and stop working on Thanksgiving!

I hope you have a great Thanksgiving!