They lined up by the score in the predawn dark and chill on Pier 33, clutching camping chairs and children, swaddled in blankets woven in tribal patterns, and crowded aboard ferries. Their destination: Alcatraz Island, there to take part in one of San Francisco’s most unique and enduring Thanksgiving Day traditions.
The annual sunrise gathering on Alcatraz carries multiple layers of meaning, according to its organizers, the International Indian Treaty Council. Held on ancestral Ohlone land, it honors the resilience of indigenous peoples in California and around the world. It commemorates the November 1969 takeover of Alcatraz by Native American student activists. And it offers a counter-narrative to the sanitized Thanksgiving story taught to schoolchildren, reminding attendees that the original 1637 event was held to celebrate a massacre of Pequot Indians.
For some, it also served as a focal point for protest of Israel’s war in Gaza and occupation of Palestinian lands, although not to the same extent as last year’s event.
“It’s all one cause, you know? It’s just world peace, baby,” said Bay Area resident Frida Ortega. She said she had come to honor her Mexican ancestors as her mother had taught her. “I’m just really here to ground myself,” she said. “That’s why I’m dancing with no shoes on.”
Many cited intergenerational ties as a motivation for attending. Kathleen Ryan, whose heritage is Indian and Irish, said she had thought about coming for many years. After the recent death of her father, “I made sure I came this year. This is my church.”
Lara Kiswani, executive director of the Arab Resource and Organizing Center, had brought her young daughter “to experience this beautiful collective gathering of mourning and honoring resistance and steadfastness of indigenous people everywhere,” she said. “It felt like a really special opportunity this time, one year into the genocide, and also as we are facing a looming fascist government here.”
The thousands in attendance — organizers expected about 4,000 total — watched performances led off by dancers representing the Muwekma Ohlone. The Yuki Resistance Dancers of the Round Valley Reservation came next; the Mexica dancers, a mixed group made up of multiple tribes, closed out the ceremony with a prayer dance.
To witness all that, plus a brilliant clear late November sunrise over the Bay, braving the frigid weather was a small price to pay. “We know it’s cold,” said Liz Xochipapalo Amador, a member of the Aztec dance group Calpulli Tonalehqueh. “That’s part of the sacrifice we need to make, an ofrenda. Being with the elements.”
| Source: Michaela Vatcheva for The Standard
