After listening to Latino USA’s podcasts I’ve linked to on Blackboard, please write a response in the comments below. How would you answer the podcasts’ questions about Thanksgiving, a Latino spin or no?
I’ll start.
Thanksgiving Day my partner and I spend with friends rather than family because a lot of my family works on Thanksgiving due to the extra overtime they can earn on Thursday. For our friends’ Thanksgiving I make pumpkin pie and cranberry apple pie. Most of the people we celebrate live in Los Angeles now, but are from out of state. On the Friday after Thanksgiving, my mom generally makes the whole turkey dinner with trimmings. The Californianess of it is we spend the time outside. We also usually have tamales as a side dish for Thanksgiving.
Our other holiday tradition is we draw names to know who we’re going to buy Christmas gift for.
Thanksgiving dinner is spent with my mom’s side of the family. We do potluck style so this way my grandma does haven’t to cook for all forty something of us. The food we eat varies, normally we have meatballs, honey ham, mashed potatoes and gravy, three different types of macaroni and cheese, chicken soup, chicarrones con chile, enchiladas, and pinwheels. We begin to arrive at my grandparent’s house around 6 and will begin to eat once everybody is there and we’ll stay there until maybe 9 because then everybody has to clean up and some go to work for black Friday. Throughout our time there we joke on each other, tell jokes, talk about our lives, any chisme that’s been going around, and then we begin prayer and going around what we’re thankful for, and end the night with picking out names for the Secret Santa.
My family spends Thanksgiving at my Grandma’s house. This has been the tradition for as long as I can remember. Everyone in the family brings some kind of food to share amongst. My Mom is the one who brings the turkey since everyone in my family agrees that she makes the best turkey. We tend to mix traditional Thanksgiving dishes with traditional Mexican dishes. My Grandma is the one who always makes the tamales and she’ll even make a salsa with the chiles from her garden. On your plate you can have mashed potatoes and some turkey with a side of homemade salsa. My family gets together around 6 and stick around until midnight or so. We used to end the night early because everyone would want to go shop on Black Friday but I think everyone is over that. I enjoy Thanksgiving because it is always a good time and I feel like everyone is enjoying each other’s presence. At my family’s Thanksgiving dinner there’s always music playing, jokes being made and lots of great food.
Thanksgiving is one of my favorite times of the year because we get to spend time with family and friends. Just recently I went to my boyfriend’s friend’s house and we had a friendsgiving which was so nice. They recently lost a close friend of theirs so the energy was special that day. We had Turkey, 3 different stuffings, 3 different macn-n-cheeses, green beans, mashed potatoes, and an entire table designated for dessert.
Thanksgiving at my house is a traditional Thangksgiving dinner but we always add tamales do the dinner. For about 3 years we made it a tradition to go to Vegas for Thanksgiving since my grandma gets free rooms at the Paris Hotel but this year we decided to stay home and host the dinner. My grandma’s physical being has declined and she isn’t as mobile as before. Also, my aunt and uncle from El Paso, Texas recently moved in with us so we figured a dinner at home would be ideal. As a Dallas Cowboys family, you know we’ll be watching the game while we cook. 🙂
My family tradition is special in the sense that I usually attend THREE households during Thanksgiving, usually starts off with noon at my grandmother Maggie’s house and they have all the traditional dishes turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, my mom’s delicious mac n cheese. My grandmother Camote dessert with marshmallows on top is usually the spotlight of the desserts, it is baked and crispy top. We usually chat for a bit and head off to the next house. At my grandfather Casto’s house, they cook similar dishes but the ham is marinated in Hawaiian punch and it is delicious. We are always joking around and take plenty of group photos. Finally, at my father’s side, the household is filled with potluck style dinner. They have different Marconi dishes, tamales, birria, and traditional dishes. They usually have karaoke going on and very one gets their own American Idol moment. It is a long day for my siblings and myself but it is always worth it!
Thanksgiving is always spent in family. Now that my siblings and I are older, we pitch in on the food, this year I am in charge of snacks, my dad is in charge of buying the turkey, my sister is in charge of buying the herbs needed for the turkey. My family keeps it semi-traditional, we make turkey, ChocoFlan, Lentejas, ponche (Hot Fruit punch with fruit), ensalada de fideos. We make our Thanksgiving more Latino, and cooking starts since 6 am and dinner is served at 8pm sharp. My family and I also dress up, even thought its just us, we always wear a nice dress, and the guys wear their nice suits. After dinner we talk for a bit and watch movies, my dad even bought a ping pon kit so we can all play as a family.
Every year my mother and aunts fight it out about who will be hosting Thanksgiving at their household. This year it will be at my aunts house and im really happy because that means i don’t have to deep clean my room. My mom had already began bugging me about how i had to clean my room in case we had thanksgiving at our house so that no one would see how messy i am. I celebrate it with my mothers side of the family since my fathers side lives in Mexico still and we don’t get along with them because they were really mean to my mom when we were younger. Its nice because our family gets bigger every year. There’s always someones new partner to bring or in this case a baby, my sister just had her first baby and it will be Minerva’s first thanksgiving. We do a pot luck style similar to many of my classmates, where everyone agrees to bring several things. We usually have three turkeys, my aunt makes a regular turkey and my mother makes a deep fried turkey and this year shes also making a bbq turkey.. not sure how thats going to taste but im willing to try it. Everyone also makes sides, my favorite side is baked beans that my cousins husband makes there seriously the best baked beans in the world!!! We all gather around and eat together and talk about our lives, even though we see each other several times a week (were all really close) After we eat we usually play karaoke and its become a family tradition to play family feud, we separate into teams and its so much fun. We use to do secret santa and we would pick names this day but my one of my aunts always give out the worst gifts like i’m not even kidding, everyone would always pray that she didn’t get us so now we do white elephant, so usually on thanksgiving we just remind everyone and let them know that they have to bring a gender neutral gift that’s between 20-30 dollars on christmas if they want to participate. It’s a really nice time to get together with everyone and just grub and share some laughs.
This year we are hoping to start a new family tradition. I have two brothers and so most years in the past all three of us (me included makes 3) would split our day into two feasts early day and late night. My mom in particular would gripe over this because she would rarely get all three of us in the same house at the same time (I can only imagine how difficult it must be for bigger families). So this year my mom decided to have her three children together on Thanksgiving and she invited our extended families. This is a big step for my mom because she is by all means antisocial (she does not have a close relation with her siblings let alone strangers) and to think she is sacrificing herself to welcome everyone into her home makes we want to cry. Yes, this year my mom will be inviting her children and their extended families for dinner (40+) and we will celebrating outdoors. We are all bringing traditional dishes: tamales, ponche, cochinita pibil, ham, turkey, meatloaf and potato just about every which way you can have it. Also we are planning on playing games like charades to pass the time. Most importantly we are going to be dancing the night away, the more skilled dancers teaching the beginners having fun with the family!
It s is very nice to read about all these wonderful traditions. Well my family isn’t that close with each other. I always try to bring everyone together on that day. It is usually my mother and i cooking. I make the turkey,mashed potatoes macaroni and cheese and freshly baked breads, my mother does the stuffing and some tamales. a week before thanksgiving i’m calling my sisters and brothers to come together at least for the holidays. They all usually make it to dinner, but leave right after . I hope this year turns out different. But i’m still thankful for having them in my life.
Thanksgiving is my families favorite holiday and we usually spend it at my parents house. Thanksgiving is the holiday that my sisters cannot miss or my parents will be upset. My mother cooks everything for thanksgiving dinner and my older sister brings dessert and my mom makes dessert as well. We wait for everything to get to my parents house and we have dinner and give thanks for all that we have and for having each other. My father usually reads a verse of the Bible and everyone gets in a circle and says what we give thanks to/for. I’m always nervous when it’s my turn because I don’t know what to say or how to say what I want to say. But I usually give thanks for being alive and having my parents still with me.
For thanksgiving, my family and I spend it at our house because most respected and favorite holiday among our family. We usually have a my grandma, my two sisters, and their husbands along with my dad’s nephew and his family come over for dinner. Every year mother cooks her famous turkey recipe that the whole family loves. She cooks a Salvadorian type turkey that she learned to cook from my father side of the family. Everyone from both sides of my family loves my moms turkey recipe and especially because the next day from the left overs we make “panes de pavo” which is a famous Salvadorian recipe as well. While everyone else brings different side dishes and desert such as potato salad, rice, ham, soup, pumpkin pie, and my sisters stuffing she cooks every year. We even sometimes cook tamales or posole that my mom makes too but we mostly eat turkey instead. Before we begin to eat dinner, my father always gathers everyone around and reads passage from the bible that has been a tradition since I was a kid. He as well asks everyone to say what they are thankful for and share it out loud with everyone else. Once we are done with our dinner we sometimes play a game of loteria with the whole family. Thanksgiving is my favorite day out of the whole year because it is nice to have the family together and eating all the amazing food
So, how does my family make Thanksgiving Latino/a??? The syncretization (cultural mestizaje) that takes place in our Thanksgiving starts with the jalapeno butter marinade. Yes, my mom marinades the Turkey with “jalapeno” butter. IT IS DELSIHHHHHH! Second, we always have chips, homemade salsa, and guacamole. Third, how can we forget the rice (arroz rojo) and frijoles (refried) (my mom does this mostly for the kids). However, the next day always gets more Latino/a—In our family, we use the left overs to make turkey taquitos, tacos, quesadillas, machaca burritos-mmmmmm, tortas, and tostadas. Simply put, my mom is very creative ☺- our leftovers do not go to waste. And of course, there is always some Presidente (alcohol) from Tijuana. WISHING EVERYONE A WONDERFUL TURKEY DAY—sending Love, Peace, and Happiness!!!!
For Thanksgiving some not all of my family members gather together. We mainly have the typical foods like mash potatoes, pasta, salad, but one thing we do not eat is Turkey. My family does not go crazy on making turkey so instead my mother and aunties do tamales, mole, or chicken with a special red sauce. In the morning my family and I go to church because we give thanks to God for the healthy life and the blessing he has given us. After mass my mothers and aunts begin the cooking, and towards the evening when everything is done my cousins and I help to set up the table. Every family member always has role in Thanksgiving and we all help one another to have everything set up. Once everyone arrives and the food is served my dad does a small prayer to thanks all hands that worked hard to make he food, and to also that God for once again for everything he has given us. Once the prayer is done we all sit down, enjoy the food, and then we play games, listen to music, and enjoy the night with my loved ones.
My family has been pretty broken for years so holidays are not really my thing. Four years ago, a beloved person of mine committed suicide on Thanksgiving and ever since then I have not been in the mood to celebrate anything within this season. This year, I wanted things to be different because I did not want to be sad. My family decided to go over a relatives house and spend some quality time together. Before we ate, a couple of people gave their thanks in front of everyone and a few tears were shed. I guess a lot of us got emotional because we recognized the love between us regardless of the distance we have been experiencing over the past couple of years. The food was pretty great and one thing I noticed was the inclusion of my Salvadoran side within the cuisine that was available. Usually, we would eat turkey, rice, and ham, but this year there was a table with pasta, vegetables, bolillo (used to make a Salvadoran dish along with the turkey), mashed potatoes and so much more. My bi-cultural identity was most definitely satisfied. I was happy during this time. I really was. Once in awhile, I would feel guilty for enjoying myself because I wanted my person to be there with me too, but I felt him around me and I knew he would want me to be happy. I hope this year was a step forward to being able to celebrate the holidays in happiness again. I also wish that my family would get together more often because it reminds us that we have each other and we could get through anything. During the end of the night, we already made the plan over our get together for Christmas. This year’s Thanksgiving was definitely one of healing and although I find the whole concept of tradition a little confusing, I really hope this one keeps on going; my soul and heart need it.