Tracy Littlejohn
The Three Rivers House serves as an important gathering place for Native Americans. One special tradition involved an alternative to Thanksgiving. Students prepared indigenous recipes and shared in their culture instead.
Transcript
Location: Three Rivers House
The address of the Three Rivers House is 724 Main Street in La Crosse, and when you’re looking at it from Main Street, it’s a huge wonderful brick building. The Three Rivers House has created a home for a lot of native people and Ho-Chunk families in this area: someplace where they know that they’re going to feel safe and comfortable. The Un-Thanksgiving, “Rethinking Thanksgiving”, that was run by the Native American students from UW- La Crosse. They would always come with recipes from home, and it was all indigenous based foods. And it was just a way to still participate in a community gathering and meal, but to let people have a chance to think about: these are the foods that have always been here from the people that have always been here, and we need to think about what our roles are now. To me, a lot of it was just that feeling of a family working together in the kitchen. I always loved those. I was always amazed at how many people would show up for that. I thought it was amazing that so many people would be interested. My Ho-Chunk name is Cooninaziwi. My English name is Tracy Littlejohn, and I am a member of the Ho-Chunk nation. And I am also a community member in the La Crosse area.