New Yorker Thanksgiving Cover

11/29/2011

Last week's New Yorker Thanksgiving Cover certainly stirred up some conversation about the very loaded national immigration debate. The Huffington Post article about the cover is a great starting point for conversation about the cover. We here at the ODI are fans of the cover. Through its ironic portrayal of pilgrims desperately crossing the border, it calls into question how we treat immigrants coming into this country today. America has always been a "land of opportunities" and we often take that for granted. So in the spirit of memories of our full bellies from last week's feast, take some time to think about who this cover is giving a voice to. Which story is it telling or trying to tell? And how does this cover and its connotations connect to your life? Happy (belated) Thanksgiving from all of us at ODI.

Huffington Post Article

1 Comment

Sara K.

12/8/2011 04:31:44 am

Thanks for the post. Thanksgiving is one of those holidays that for many people is part of their sense of national identity - celebrated from the time we are young children and woven into our experiences of home and family. Consequently, many Americans don't consciously take the time to deconstruct the history of the holiday versus the mythologized version of our national past that gets iterated and reiterated in countless ways every year. Who do these stories include and exclude, how do race and colonialism relate to our national narratives, and how are those discourses continuing to play out - not in some distant New England past - but in our everyday lives, institutions, and U.S. policy?

Welcome to the
Official Blog of
Voices of The People

A new initiative out of the Office of Diversity Initiatives, Voices of the People, seeks to connect voices from our collective past to our collective present and future. Based off of the work of the late Howard Zinn, author of A People’s History of the United States, VOTP gives voice to the often silenced and marginalized voices throughout history, be it major historical events or movements. We believe that understanding our past in a holistic way is integral to continuing to understand the present and future. We believe in the power of storytelling and thereby highlighting the power of one’s voices to accomplish our mission.