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Thanksgiving From An Immigrant’s Perspective
A day for contemplation and gratitude
My first encounter with Thanksgiving was less than auspicious. I had moved to Berkeley, California to enter UC Berkeley’s Ph.D. program in linguistics. For the first semester, I lived in International House.
One Thursday morning in November, I went down to the dining hall for breakfast, and it was closed. What? What was worse, I discovered that it would remain closed for several days, for the entire Thanksgiving weekend!
I asked around and was told that “everybody went home” for the Thanksgiving weekend, so there would be no need for the dining facilities.
“Uhm,” I said, “but half the students here at International House are international students. Not only don’t they celebrate Thanksgiving where they’re from, but even if they did, it would be quite impractical to fly home for a weekend.”
They didn’t see my point. They suggested that the international students should have gone home with their new friends…
So I walked down the hill to find other food option and discovered that just about everything was closed, both on campus and off campus.
I did find something to eat eventually, but the experience left me less than excited about that supposed holiday.
