Native American playwright Larissa FastHorse takes on the 'wild mess' of Thanksgiving

https://www.npr.org/2023/11/21/ [login to see] /larissa-fasthorse-the-thanksgiving-play
The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade has been getting some updates. Four years ago, Native American playwright Larissa FastHorse and her creative partner Ty Defoe began consulting with parade organizers to make the annual event "less harmful" to Indigenous people. The first order of business was to get rid of the pilgrims.

"Things like the pilgrims are really difficult topics and subjects for folks that were on this coast and had their people almost entirely wiped out by those people, whether intentionally or unintentionally," FastHorse says.

Tom Turkey, the giant bird who traditionally opens the parade, used to roll along with two children dressed as pilgrims on his back. No longer. Now Tom wears a bow tie along with his top hat, as if he's attending a show. FastHorse also encouraged parade organizers, in 2020, to include for the first time a land acknowledgement, recognizing the Lenape people who inhabited the island of Manhattan prior to European settlement.