During my Thanksgiving trip to the East Coast I read a story about people trying to get accepted into the Mayflower Society. To join this esteemed and rarefied club you need to be able to prove that you are a direct descendant of one of the Pilgrims.
But the bar to obtaining membership is high – you can’t just show up waving a wooden clog and say “William Bradford was a size eleven, and so is this shoe my great-great grandfather passed down to me, so there.” Since as many as ten generations can separate you from your descendant, lots of arduous documentation is required.
But pull it off, and you can get a plaque honoring your heritage. Yes, you can sit on the couch all day eating nachos and doing squat, but you are a now a very important person just for being born.
But the plaque doesn’t mention the Pilgrims’ role as America’s first illegal immigrants. Nope, it talks about things like “unfailing strength” and “abiding faith” and “undying courage.”
Speaking of dying, I think we need a society for descendants of the Native Americans who kept the Pilgrims alive. Their ancestors taught the Pilgrims how to cultivate corn and collect seafood so they wouldn’t have to eat each other to survive. Which is a blessing, since the English are mostly white meat, which is tougher.
This new honorary society could be named the “We Kept Your Honky Asses From Staving To Death Society.”
Yes, it’s time to honor America’s first citizens. Because without them and their generosity, there’d probably be no America.
No good deed goes unpunished, right? That’s what the Native Americans got for being good guys: war; new diseases; no more land; poverty.
My father and his parents came over here on a couple of boats from Italy back in the early 20th Century, because my grandfather figured that being poor in America was better than being even poorer in Italy, but nobody is going to call me a very important person for that.
“Because without them and their generosity, there’d probably be no America.”
Something I’m sure they regret to this day. Thanks for opening old wounds. 😉