The traditional tale of the Pilgrims (a name by which they did not refer to themselves) and their arrival in America was a simple one. Nowadays, we would probably start by asking, "what were they thinking?!" i.e. what made them think that they could sail across the ocean and just establish themselves on a distant land to which they had no historical connection and that was already inhabited by others? The answer from their point of view was at the time just as simple and self-evident as ours. The historian's craft (to cite the title of Marc Bloch's classic work) consists in attempting to bring the two together.
Since the issue of immigration and immigration reform remains topical (not least in light of the apparent coalescence of a new Democratic coalition), here is a selection of cartoons chronicling the appearance of this theme in Thanksgiving and related humor of recent years.
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| it all started with Columbus |
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