My stepsister won this essay contest in her senior high school year and big bucks for college. I can't remember the sponsors name but he started the Friendly's restaurant chain.
Enjoy.
Laws of Life Essay Grand Prize Winner 2003
Thanksgiving Day is defined as an American national holiday, set apart for giving thanks to God, celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November. Today society has acclaimed "Thanksgiving" as time spent with the family to celebrate the first shared dinner in 1606 by Pilgrims and Wampanoag Indians at Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts. As a family holiday, it represents a time to cherish love for family and each other. The day is celebrated with a meal of roasted turkey, sweet and mashed potatoes, green bean casserole and other various foods that have been made into the "traditional feast." However, not all American families are the same. For me and my family Thanksgiving is not traditional.
My heritage is typical -- white middle class with an extended family. I would guess that most of my peers and their family have no idea what it is like to be a minority; especially at Thanksgiving. But, for me being a minority is not that unusual. My mother, a wonderful person, who is enchanted by other cultures as well as being a magnificent historian, has made such family traditions and holidays different from what American society would call normal suburban holidays. Before I was born she was involved with cultural education at the Brighton Seminole Reservation, seventeen miles west of Okeechobee, Florida. She met and came to love this unique culture and met some of the most incredible people -- like the Jones family. Shula, an elder Florida Seminole, the matriarch of her clan, took to my mother and graciously gave our family an introduction into her culture.
Each Thanksgiving, ever since I can remember, has been spent with this wonderful family. This Thanksgiving holiday is not exactly what everyone else experiences. It's hard to do the same traditional things when you're 40 miles from normal civilization, and in a completely different culture. Our host, Shula Jones is the mother of eight, grandmother and great-grandmother to dozens of children, and is the oldest of the Jones branch of the Panther Clan. Her large family gathers for one week in the Florida hammocks camping and experiencing nature and family at its fullest. I remember when I was younger the feeling of resentment that I had toward my mother. I was ignorant and spoiled to think that being the only white girl was uncomfortable and weird. I definitely did not understand the privilege of my experience. I wanted my life to be like the movies and TV shows portrayed it to be. You know the traditional family Thanksgiving spent around a huge dining table, with an abundance of television, family and food. Instead I was freezing my tail off in a distant land with a distant culture, and the only thing I could do was sit by the fire and wish I had dark skin, black hair, and could understand the Creek language. For years this is what I thought of my not-so-traditional Thanksgiving.
I now realize my experiences with the Seminole Indians are truly a treasure that should be shared. My first memory was watching the elders cook sofkee over the large cooking fire in the middle of the tall cooking chickee in the middle of the camp. Young children playing with baby animals and running happily to and fro, while their young parents (most my age) laugh and share stories. The first night is spent setting up the campsite. Men get the hunting gear ready and the women pitch tents or settle into their chickee, the traditional Seminole dwelling built of cypress poles, thatched palm frond roof and a raised floor. I guess you can say that not much has changed in the traditional Seminole setting. Teenagers bring out the four-wheelers and the horses. Our family, of course is different. We bring tons of packing equipment, a camper trailer, two tents and lots of things to keep us occupied for five days. I guess it's the "white man" for you: too much, too often and too wasteful! The first night my brother and I usually keep mostly to ourselves because of racial differences. We are, for the first time, a minority.
By the second day, we settle in and enjoy being part of the group. Nights are spent in a big party. The men hunt, or drive around in the big swamp buggies looking for game, while the women talk around the never ending camp fire, and the children find different ways to busy themselves, mostly playing "manhunt" or hide and seek in the dark. The festivities go all night and the party doesn't end until the last person falls asleep -- usually when morning breaks and the breakfast cooking begins. Racial differences are put aside, and we all come together and have a great tine, just being friends and family.
The following days are spent tending to cattle, fishing, and swimming in the old mine pit. Not being much of a cattle person, I tried to help as much as I could in rounding up the young calves, all destines to become steers. After rounding up the calves, young boys straddle the poor, castrated calves and ride until they fall off. This I must say, is an odd tradition, but one that is cherished and honored just as much as those traditions of eating turkey and watching television.
When Thanksgiving Day arrives we, just as other families do, gather children, friends and elders for a shared meal. For so many years I spent this day ignorantly whining to myself that I didn't know what I was eating. The various types of cultural foods were not at all strange to the wonderful people that I was eating with, and that was when I realized that it doesn't matter what foods are on the table, or who you are with, it was my mother's lesson -- the gift of acceptance. She taught me that it didn't matter what you ate, who you prayed to, or what color your hair and skin is because people will love you for who you are, and that your race is just something that helps make who you are not what you are.
So, this past Thanksgiving as I departed from my friends and wished them well, until next year, I left with the greatest lesson in my life. Throughout my life something extraordinary has happened. I began to grow up and realize while sitting by a campfire under a palm thatched chickee, I was participating in something that not many (non Indian) people get to experience. and that this is truly special. My mother taught me a most important lesson, one which should be spread throughout the world: To accept other cultures, and avoid the feeling of trying to be the norm and embrace other traditions and values.
That acceptance of all cultures is, in my opinion, the most important Law of Life, because if you don't first accept who you are then embrace the culture and lifestyles of others, then that sets you back and sets the world back. For it is cultural intolerance that is the basis of so many world issues, and I know that just the smallest thing helps. Whether it is volunteering for social reform, working for the underprivileged, or just embracing another culture, it will bring the world closer and makes life a little more enjoyable for all. It is also my opinion that many of the world's problems could be solved if people just exercised what my mother taught me to believe; that acceptance of other cultures and embracing others is as true as being yourself.
In conclusion, I would like to thank my mother for the greatest Law of Life, and for those who allowed me to grow as a person and make me understand that it doesn't matter what society claims to be a tradition, it's the family that makes it and a single person who embraces it.
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