Columns

CHOUNG | Popping the Cornell Bubble

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The bubble will soon pop as my flight leaves the airport, and the magic from Ithaca will fade as I enter back into the real world. Going back home means reconnecting with your childhood and viewing things you once took for granted from a new perspective. Home may not be as familiar anymore, but there’s now just a new aspect of it that you have the privilege to explore. 

Columns

ONONYE | 21 Things to be Thankful for in 2021: Cornell Edition

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Last year, I wrote a column titled “20 Things to be Thankful for in 2020: Cornell Edition” to encourage Cornellians to be thankful in spite of the struggles of the pandemic. Rereading that article is just a glimpse into how drastically our lives were changed by the start of the 2020 pandemic.

Dining

Guide to a Gluten Free Thanksgiving

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The smells, sights, tastes and drunk uncles of Thanksgiving make it the national holiday that we know and love. Turkey drowned in gravy and cranberry sauce, cornbread that crumbles in your mouth and heaping plates of mashed potatoes all come to mind as Thanksgiving classics. Sadly, much of this delicious nourishment contains gluten. 

Celiac disease, a disease in which the small intestine is unable to process wheat, rye and barley, affects about 1% of the population, including myself. As the holiday season nears, I often get asked, “What do you even eat?” and “Wait, you can’t have bread?” followed by a look of astonishment. To give non-celiac individuals a look into my holiday rituals, I’ve composed a brief guide to a gluten free Thanksgiving. 

Go crazy on the cranberry sauce 

This step is relatively easy, as everyone loves cranberry sauce.

Dining

AUSTIN | A Moosewood Thanksgiving

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I want to love Thanksgiving ー family, friends and an abundance of food ー but I have never really been a Thanksgiving person. Thanksgiving has the classic foods that everyone looks forward to, but I just don’t get what’s so special. Turkeys kind of freak me out because they’re so big, sure cranberry sauce is good but it’s over-hyped and I don’t understand why mashed potatoes are typified as a Thanksgiving food. For all the whining I do about Thanksgiving, it’s hard to not get caught up in the spirit of it. Fall is my favorite season ー the leaves change colors, everything is so crisp and it finally starts to get cold.

Dining

Decolonize Your Thanksgiving Dinner

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As we wrap up semi-finals and transition to break, most students seem excited to go home and celebrate Thanksgiving. It’s been a long and fast-paced semester without many breaks, and being able to relax will come as a relief. For many Cornellians, this holiday is an opportunity to catch up with loved ones and express what we’re grateful for. However, it’s important to recognize the origins of our traditions and critically examine the history that we teach. 

Many American students are still taught the story of Thanksgiving as a peaceful event that celebrated the unity between pilgrims and Native Americans. However, this is far from the truth.

cooking

An Immigrant Thanksgiving

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A Salvadoran-American Perspective

For the first time in almost four years, many Americans feel tentatively proud of their country. Tireless encouragement to vote has helped prove that community support can unite a country divided and reestablish American values of truth, integrity and respect. As such, it seemed appropriate to take a look at the new meanings Thanksgiving may hold this year; Samai Navas, a recent Salvadoran-American immigrant and close family friend, shares what her All (Salvadoran) American Thanksgiving has come to represent over the years. 

It’s worth noting that the typical modern Thanksgiving symbolizes and commemorates an ideal that only existed for a very short time. While there is some truth behind the story of a peaceful feast between European settlers and the Wampanoag people in 1621, this calm did not last. Between the years of 1630 and 1642, plague tore through Native communities, resulting in the death of more than half of all Native Americans living at the time.