For many Americans, Thanksgiving is a special, beloved holiday for eating turkey – or a vegetarian main course option – and spending time with friends and family. (1) ________, for others, the celebration is deeply controversial – as Thanksgiving has a contentious history that goes far beyond when the first feast was held. In addition to a holiday steeped with cultural appropriation, the period of history in America is frequently white-washed – which leads many Americans to ignore the holiday. ...

For many Americans, Thanksgiving is a special, beloved holiday for eating turkey – or a vegetarian main course option – and spending time with friends and family. (1) ________, for others, the celebration is deeply controversial – as Thanksgiving has a contentious history that goes far beyond when the first feast was held. In addition to a holiday steeped with cultural appropriation, the period of history in America is frequently white-washed – which leads many Americans to ignore the holiday.

Young children are taught about Thanksgiving in school, where they often learn of the first feast through crafts and drawings. In addition to depictions of turkeys, the Mayflower and the Pilgrims, many children decorate Native American headdresses – (2) _________ frequently bare no resemblance to the headdresses, clothes and feathers worn by the Wampanoag Indians. These inaccurate (3) __________ references are perpetrated each year, making the battle for equality and accurate representation an ongoing one for Native Americans in America. Most Americans think the three-day celebration between the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag Indians in 1621 in Plymouth, Massachusetts was the first Thanksgiving. The Pilgrims and their Native American neighbours had signed a mutual protection treaty the spring before and the feast was in (4) _________ of a successful first harvest.

But from the Pilgrims’ point of view, the first Thanksgiving – meant to be a day set (5) _______ for prayer and worship – took place in July 1623. Governor William Bradford declared a day of Thanksgiving to give thanks for the rain that had ended a drought and saved their harvest.

(1) ________, for others, the celebration is deeply controversial – as Thanksgiving has a contentious history that goes far beyond when the first feast was held.