Austin Folkertsma
campus editor

Not everyone celebrates Thanksgiving with a turkey, cornbread stuffing and mashed potatoes.

“We call Thanksgiving, ‘el día de las gracias,’ which means the day of Thanksgiving,” NE student Raul Garcia said. “I remember celebrating our Thanksgiving with lots of tamales.

We have our traditional turkey just like everyone else does with all the trimmings and fixings, cornbread stuffing, beets, all the same stuff.”

He said his family makes some traditional food to his culture called capirotada — bread with raisins and cinnamon — and also a method of cooking meat called barbacoa, which translates to barbeque.

He said the more you go into Mexico, the more their traditions start to change up a little and become more diverse.

“We have family friends that live in Pflugerville. My immediate family and I will travel to Pflugerville, and we’ll spend time with our family friends over there, and it’s super special,” NE student Stephen DeGrenier said.

He said his family will have turkey, stuffing and other traditional items, and the dad of the friend’s family will smoke various kinds of meat.

“One of my favorite family traditions that we have is that we will gather around the food and we’ll pray over it, and then after that, we will each go around the room and say one thing we are thankful for,” he said.

He said Thanksgiving is one of his favorite times of the year because his family focuses on gratitude and just enjoys family time that some take for granted.

“I’m ready to go out to Oklahoma with my family and my tribe,” NE student Chris Mendoza said. “We’re going to have some bear stew, some boar and we’re going to have a little after-party with the whole family. We’re going to pay some respects to our fallen friends.”

Mendoza said he isn’t fully Native and he loves his family and his tribe.

“Not much has changed, and I don’t want anything to change because it’s tradition, and my family has done it for so many years,” he said.

He said that his family is going to do some activities like go to the lake and do some archery.

“Typical Thanksgiving for my family is very, I’d say, different or odd, because everyone comes together differently, but my main core is to be sure we come together and be thankful for what Christ has given us in my life, and in my family’s life,” NE student Felix Cervantez said.

He said his family brings different meals because he only eats plant-based foods. His family doesn’t do anything extraordinary, but he is thankful for what he and his family have.