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OPINION
East Oregonian
Thursday, November 24, 2016
Founded October 16, 1875
KATHRYN B. BROWN
Publisher
DANIEL WATTENBURGER
Managing Editor
TIM TRAINOR
Opinion Page Editor
MARISSA WILLIAMS
Regional Advertising Director
MARCY ROSENBERG
Circulation Manager
JANNA HEIMGARTNER
Business Office Manager
MIKE JENSEN
Production Manager
OUR VIEW
Native issues
as loud as ever
Thanksgiving is among the
issues. The Thanksgiving story is a
cornucopia filled with partnership,
most beloved days in the American
respect and gratefulness between
calendar, a unique holiday that
cultures. At Standing Rock, there is
honors our country’s best qualities.
a complete lack of all three.
Yet its roots are not the grade-
That dichotomy was present in
school pageant and fairy tale we
downtown Pendleton last week,
learned as children. That narrative
as the city celebrated Clarence
— the survival of the Pilgrims
Burke, a revered
and the friendly
tribal member and
meal shared with
longtime co-chief
Indians — is closer
The
buffet
of
of the Round-Up
to Santa Claus and
food and family Indian Village. The
the Easter Bunny
of Burke’s
than historical fact.
spread before us reveal
statue took place
It’s more mythology
is the product of just after a gathering
than history, but
local people
unlike the Easter
more than 200 of
marched down
Bunny it is a myth
that continues to
years of tribal Main Street in
of Standing
shape the lives and
and government support
Rock — something
issues that some
no city official or
people face today.
and human
representative was a
We know that in
relations.
part of, as far as we
Umatilla County
can tell.
and Eastern Oregon.
As much good as
This is a rare
American place, and not just because statues can be, or words of thanks
to Squanto and the farming tips of
it is home to Indian reservations
and thousands of tribal members are a now-exterminated tribe, it avoids
the real issues people are fighting for
friends, family and neighbors.
today. And you don’t have to look
Treaty rights and tribal issues
all the way to Standing Rock, either.
have always been part of the
discussion here — though the power Tribal rights are being debated
against Nestlé in Hood River and the
dynamic has never been static.
state of Oregon and Port of Morrow
But those long-gnawed-on local
and Port of Arlington. These are
issues are re-entering the national
good debates to have, no matter your
conversation at a level not heard
outlook, and much more complex
since the 1970s.
Mostly that is because of protests than nodding appreciatively at a
statue.
and legal fights at Standing Rock
It’s Thanksgiving. We should find
in North Dakota. The issues there
ways to be thankful and appreciative
strike at the core of the current
and kind. The buffet of food and
political landscape — environment,
family spread before us today is the
energy policy, corporate power,
product of more than 200 years of
the right to protest and, yes, treaty
tribal and government and human
rights. Larger media organizations
relations, of continuous arrival of
are concentrating on the daily
immigrants by boat and plane and
clashes, but recently there has been
deeper reporting — partly due to the foot. Few have suffered more in
Malheur occupation — on land right pursuit of that feast — financially
and culturally and literally — than
claims throughout this country.
American Indians. It continues
There is a clear dichotomy
today, on this most native of
between how America views past
American holidays.
Indian issues and present Indian
Unsigned editorials are the opinion of the East Oregonian editorial board of publisher
Kathryn Brown, managing editor Daniel Wattenburger, and opinion page editor Tim Trainor.
Other columns, letters and cartoons on this page express the opinions of the authors and not
necessarily that of the East Oregonian.
YOUR VIEWS
Legislator thankful for
re-election, voter support
Dear friends and neighbors:
As we come to that time of year
where we give thanks for the many
blessings in our lives, I would be
remiss if I did not say “thank you” for
returning me to the Oregon House of
Representatives to serve as your voice in
Salem. It is a great privilege and honor.
While session will not convene until the
second week of January, I want you to
know our office continues to be open to
serve your needs.
There are many challenges that will
need to be addressed by Oregon’s 79th
Legislative Assembly. These issues
include constitutionally balancing the
state budget, fully funding our schools,
protecting small business owners,
advocating for our senior citizens,
addressing the PERS shortfall, creating
a transportation package that is fair and
equitable, as well as bringing balance
back to our natural resource laws. As
the GOP House Budget Chairman, I am
committed to working on these issues.
Your input in this process is valuable.
Please do not hesitate to contact me, or
better yet, stop by and visit me at the
State Capitol. My contact information
is:
The Honorable Gregory V. Smith
Oregon House of Representatives
900 Court Street NE, H-482
Salem, OR 97301
My telephone is 503-986-1457, and
the email address is rep.gregsmith@
oregonlegislature.gov.
If you have any meetings or events
in your area that you would like me to
attend, please contact my legislative
aide, Mr. Phillip Scheuers, to coordinate
attendance at the above number.
It is by working together that we will
make District 57 and the State of Oregon
a better place to live.
Rep. Greg Smith
Heppner
OTHER VIEWS
A different kind of pilgrim
By COLIN STEELE
Writers on the Range
C
elebrating Thanksgiving four years
ago, I was a stranger in a strange land.
Fresh out of college and not quite
three months into AmeriCorps service on
the Colville Reservation in north-central
Washington, I would not be able to enjoy
the Thanksgiving tradition I’d known all my
life — watching the parade
in New York City with my
family. I was going to need
to find another home for the
holiday.
Spike, a rancher and the
cousin of a teacher friend,
was a possibility. I had met
him when I went to help
gather his cattle in from their
summer pasture, visions
of cowboy glory dancing
in my head. When I told
him I had just completed
college back in Washington,
D.C., he growled, “D.C.,
huh? You better not be no
f---in’ politician.” But then
he laughed and taught me
how to use a modern cowboy’s four-wheeled
steed: “This turns it on. This makes it go. Now
follow me — and don’t flip it.”
I did flip the all-terrain vehicle once, but
I liked ranching, and Spike liked me enough
to keep teaching me to chase cows. So, in
mid-November, I gratefully accepted his
invitation to join his family’s Thanksgiving
dinner on the ranch with my six fellow
volunteers.
By that point, I knew a little bit about
families and traditions on the reservation
but had yet to join a Native family for a
celebration in their own home. Holiday
gatherings differ from family to family, and at
the home level they are bound to be imbued
with “the way we do things.” We were warmly
welcomed, yet I could not shake the feeling
of being an interloper. I stood awkward and
tense in my new cowboy boots during the
drumming and singing that began the family’s
version of Thanksgiving.
As the afternoon wore on, I began to relax.
I couldn’t help but see the irony in being a
pilgrim, a newly arrived suyapi — white
person — from Massachusetts, celebrating
Thanksgiving with a Native American
family, and all of us watching the Dallas vs.
Washington football game on TV after dinner.
The game ended, and over dessert I learned
that, in October, our host and several other
family members had fought a wildfire that
came within feet of destroying the tribal
school and the trailer we volunteers lived in.
The story was told in an uproarious way, but it
brought a pang to my heart. The silly parallels
I had been drawing in my mind between the
“First Thanksgiving” story of Squanto and the
Pilgrims gave way to a deeper appreciation
for the meaning of the holiday. I felt deep
gratitude for the hospitality of Spike and his
family.
That hospitality, and my thanksgiving,
continued through the rest
of the year. Months later,
sitting on the porch of the
ranch house watching the
cows, Spike delivered a
lesson that rivaled — in
maybe a minute and a
half — anything I’d heard in
four years of college.
“Look,” he said, “You
ain’t gonna save anybody
here. We don’t need it.
But I’m sure glad all you
volunteers come here each
year from all over the
country and see how we live
here. And maybe you’ll take
that with you when you go
back East or wherever.”
This Thanksgiving, I’ll
wake up in my grandmother’s apartment in
New York City. As I dress for the parade, I’ll
glance out the window at the bits of Hudson
River still visible between the towers of
Trump Place across the street, and I’ll think
back to the lessons I learned on the ranch.
Indeed, that year, for which neither my
suburban Boston upbringing nor my shiny
diploma in international relations had really
prepared me, taught me the meaning and
power of gratitude in daily life.
During volunteer orientation, someone said
that we didn’t have to like everyone in our
communities, but we did have to try to love
them. The more I came to know that endlessly
complex community, the less I understood
it. But I loved that slice of rural and Native
America with my whole soul.
I didn’t fully understand rural America
then, and I won’t pretend to now. But I remain
shaped for life by people who opened their
homes and their hearts to me when I was a
stranger. We called each other friends four
years ago, and we still do today.
■
Colin Steele is a contributor to Writers
on the Range, the opinion service of High
Country News. He was a Jesuit Volunteer
Corps Northwest/AmeriCorps volunteer on
the Colville Reservation from 2012-2013. He
is now a student at the Fletcher School of Law
and Diplomacy at Tufts University
I stood awkward
and tense in my
new cowboy
boots during
the drumming
and singing
that began the
family’s version
of Thanksgiving.
OTHER VIEWS
Forget fasting —
Thanksgiving a time to feast
By BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
T
here is a tradition that in the planting of
New England, the first settlers met with
many difficulties and
hardships, as is generally
the case when a civiliz’d
people attempt to establish
themselves in a wilderness
country. Being so piously
dispos’d, they sought relief
from heaven by laying their
wants and distresses before
the Lord in frequent set
days of fasting and prayer.
Constant meditation and
discourse on these subjects
kept their minds gloomy and
discontented, and like the children of Israel
there were many dispos’d to return to the
Egypt which persecution had induc’d them to
abandon.
At length, when it was proposed in the
Assembly to proclaim another fast, a farmer
of plain sense rose and remark’d that the
inconveniences they suffer’d, and concerning
which they had so often weary’d heaven with
their complaints, were not so great as they
might have expected, and were diminishing
every day as the colony strengthen’d; that
the earth began to reward their labour and
furnish liberally for their subsistence; that
their seas and rivers were
full of fish, the air sweet, the
climate healthy, and above
all, they were in the full
enjoyment of liberty, civil
and religious.
He therefore thought that
reflecting and conversing
on these subjects would
be more comfortable
and lead more to make
them contented with
their situation; and that it
would be more becoming
the gratitude they ow’d to the divine being,
if instead of a fast they should proclaim a
thanksgiving. His advice was taken, and
from that day to this, they have in every
year observ’d circumstances of public
felicity sufficient to furnish employment
for a Thanksgiving Day, which is therefore
constantly ordered and religiously observed.
— Benjamin Franklin, 1785
The earth began
to reward
their labour
and furnish
liberally for their
subsistence.
LETTERS POLICY
The East Oregonian welcomes original letters of 400 words or less on public issues
and public policies for publication in the newspaper and on our website. The newspaper
reserves the right to withhold letters that address concerns about individual services and
products or letters that infringe on the rights of private citizens. Submitted letters must
be signed by the author and include the city of residence and a daytime phone number.
The phone number will not be published. Unsigned letters will not be published. Send
letters to managing editor Daniel Wattenburger, 211 S.E. Byers Ave. Pendleton, OR 97801
or email editor@eastoregonian.com.