Saul Carter
English 1118 Sec 35
Katherine Hanson
3/24/15

What Do You Celebrate?
July, 4th, is a day of the year most Americans look forward too. The day many
Americans all of a sudden become full of American pride decked out in red, white, and blue, grilling by the lake, young adults turning up and yelling ‘MERICA, but most importantly watching the fireworks exploding off in the dark night sky. As many of you know July 4th, is the day Americans celebrate our independence from the (not so) Great Britain. This used to be one of my all time favorite holidays. That is, until I read the poem
What Do You Celebrate by a
Native American named Darlene Dotson.
What Do You Celebrate criticizes Americans for its celebrating of the 4th of July. The main idea of the poem is to bring to up the dark and evil history of America, that is seemed to be skimmed over in schools, or often times skipped. It begins with the question of what do we usually celebrate when it’s fourth of July, then it talks about the how America celebrates its independence and freedom from Britain, while for Native Americans it was the continuation of white man degrading them. To many of them it was just the celebration of freedom for the white man. Many Americans believe that Independence Day is the day America became free, however for Native American, it was just more abuse for them. They were still being enslaved and facing nasty hate from the white man. They were never free, because they still had to endure a huge amount of hate. One of the lines in the poems talks about how