Happy Thanksgiving!  Today we celebrate the anniversary of the feast in which Native Americans helped the first immigrants survive in their new land. This week we've seen Native Americans brutally attacked for defending their right to clean water, while many Americans are being yelled at to "Go back to where you came from!" Of course this only makes us more determined to celebrate our diversity and come together as Americans, whether our families have always been here, or whether they came came here on the Mayflower, on slave ships, steamships, rafts, or airplanes. I'd love to hear about your "coming to America/always been in America" stories; I'd love to hear what you're especially thankful for (if you want to comment below)... Hope you have a happy holiday, everyone, with good company, good food, and good conversation: may your only fighting be over the wishbone!

Pictured is my great-grandfather, Alec Sherman, who emigrated from Kaunas, Lithuania, to New York, in the early 1900s, to escape enscription into the Russian army and to enjoy religious freedom--which he indeed found in America. He married my great-grandmother, Jenny Melkiur, who was from Latvia, and they moved to Los Angeles, where they spent the rest of their lives with their eight children, including my grandmother Sarah. My father's family came from Cork County, Ireland. I am thankful that all of my great-grandparents made the arduous journey to America, and that all of my ancestors lives intersected in such a way that I was born and am writing this today....


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