Thank You Corn
As Buddhists, many of us have equated the Thanksgiving holiday as an opportunity to be grateful, since gratitude is the backbone of the Shin Buddhist practice and it fits in perfectly with a day of thanks. However, it is important to acknowledge that while many Americans are celebrating with tables full of food and family, for many it is considered a day of deep mourning.
We learn as children that Thanksgiving was about the Native Americans celebrating the survival of a tough winter with the Pilgrims in Plymouth. Sadly, our history lessons left out the parts where plague, genocide, and intergenerational trauma would be the real legacy of Thanksgiving. It wasn't until Abraham Lincoln's presidency that Thanksgiving became a national holiday. Lincoln created the day to promote unity during the Civil War. This beloved American holiday is a socially constructed story not based on reality.
First, let’s say their name together: Wampanoag. Wam-puh-noh-ag. They were not simply “Native Americans," but rather people with their own history and culture. The name Wampanoag means “people of the first light.” They believed in Mother Earth as their god. They had a practice of thanking the earth for their food, plants, and animals. The Wampanoag crafted beautiful wampum beads out of white and purple shells. They had their own music and dancing. They were farmers who took care of the land.
The Pilgrims were unsuccessful in growing the wheat they brought with them from Europe. Thus, they relied on the Wampanoag's land, food, and skills to survive their first harsh winter. In particular, it is said that the Pilgrims took the Wampanoag's corn, which had been cultivated by Native Americans for over 9,000 years and was an important source of food. This corn saved the English settlers' lives.
I would argue that corn is an important building block of everything we have today in the United States. Even in modern times, corn has helped ensure survival. This legacy goes back to indigenous people like the Wampanoag.
Did you know that corn is the primary U.S. feed grain, making up 95% of what is fed to livestock?
The corn industry was valued at $91.73 billion in 2022, with only 1% of corn being the sweet corn that we like to eat. It is grown in more than 40 states, and the United States is a leader in corn production around the world. The US government substantially subsidizes corn production, spending $2.7 billion in 2014.
Today, corn is literally everywhere. It is found in Windex, fiberglass basketball backboards, a bottle of Tylenol, peanut butter, sandpaper, fireworks, diapers, cereal, ethanol fuel, and many more common items we consume and use every single day.
Controversially, many junk food items we like to eat are made with high-fructose corn syrup. Check your food labels and see how often corn syrup appears in the ingredients. Michael Pollan wrote about “cornification” and the risks of sacrificing our health to the economic incentives of using corn. This diet has led to an increase in conditions such as obesity, heart disease, diabetes, and fatty liver disease. There is also controversy about genetically modified corn, and ethical questions about who controls ownership of the seeds. Many tribes today don’t even have access to the heirloom seeds their ancestors cultivated for thousands of years.
On Thanksgiving, as Buddhists, I think we should reflect on corn. Take a moment to pause and remember its origins. We should be grateful for the Wampanoag, who still live in New England today, for being an important part of the American story.
In the New York Times Article “A Thanksgiving History Lesson in a Handful of Corn,” the author wrote “The United States is in the middle of a fierce battle over the stories Americans tell themselves about how the nation was built and what it stands for today.” We know as humans, we are susceptible to our self-delusions. It can feel daunting to look at the mistakes of our ancestors and feel like there is nothing we can do about it. But there is something we can do. We can tell the real stories, as raw and painful as they are. We can acknowledge the suffering that happened as a first step.
We can still be grateful. For better or worse, this corn has enabled us to live the life we have today in the United States. It is part of who we are. We can do better, and we should do better. But in this moment— on Thanksgiving— we can be grateful to the Wampanoag. We can thank the earth. The soil, water, thousands of years of Native American knowledge and trial and error that gave us the seeds, and we can be thankful for all of the nourishment that made our existence possible.
