As An Indigenous Woman, I Always Hate Thanksgiving. This Year I’m Terrified Of It.

I used to think it was enough, every Thanksgiving, to post Wednesday Addams’ famous Thanksgiving monologue. Like most Indian kids across the country, when I first saw “Addams Family Values,” I delighted in the speech delivered by the iconic little outcast. It was one of the first times I remember feeling seen in pop culture as she rants about the realities of reservations and settler/colonial violence, about selling beaded bracelets by the roadside. Her statement about living in mobile homes resonated so intensely with me that I think my 10-year-old self actually fell in love with Christina Ricci. If I hadn’t been already, I was in that moment.

Looking like the Land of Lakes Indian Maiden, match in hand and eyes wide, she looked into the camera and promised to burn the pilgrim village to the ground, and I cheered. I don’t think the writers knew what they were doing. This wasn’t just another dark remark, pointing to the character’s fascination with all things morbid. This was a statement about Indigenous identity.