“From Plymouth to the Pub: Thanksgiving, Native History, & Resistance"

Lectures by professors and subject experts on mind-stimulating topics, served up at cool Bay Area bars.

Date: Mon, Nov 16th, 2026 🌙

Time: 6:30 PM doors open, 7 PM lecture ⏳

Location: Mad Oak, Oakland 🍻

Lecture: “From Plymouth to the Pub: Thanksgiving, Native History, & Resistance" 🦃

Speaker: Jayden Lim (Pomo/Coast Miwok), Program Specialist at the California Indian Museum & Cultural Center student specializing in 20th-century Native American history 🧠

What if the story you learned about America was never the whole truth?

Thanksgiving is one of America's most familiar origin stories. But beneath the celebrations lies a much more complicated history of colonization, Indigenous dispossession, and the myths that have helped shape the American national identity. Some stories have been left out. Others have been reshaped to fit the version of America we've been taught to believe.

Join Jayden Lim, a Berkeley PhD student & Program Specialist at the California Indian Museum & Cultural Center, for a provocative exploration of California's Indigenous histories, with a particular focus on the Native tribes of the Bay Area. We'll unpack the stereotypes that persist about Native peoples and examine how nationalism shapes the way American history is told, remembered, and sometimes distorted.

Drawing on research into federal Indigenous relocation policies, this talk explores how Native people from across the country were relocated to urban centers like San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose. We'll examine how they built community and resisted assimilation through distinctly Native bars, some Native-owned and decorated with Indigenous art, that became gathering places for political organizing and cultural connection.

From the land we live on to the national myths we inherit, this talk challenges us to reconsider what we think we know about California and the country we call home. Beyond the familiar Thanksgiving narrative, we'll explore the histories that complicate the national story and the Indigenous communities whose presence and histories continue today.

This isn't just about rethinking Thanksgiving. It's about questioning who gets to tell America's story, whose version becomes history, and what happens when we start looking closer.

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Info: Doors open! Our event is open seating, so come early to grab a seat and grab your drinks + food.

Info: Mingle, grow your bar tab, vibe!

Event venue & nearby stays

Mad Oak Bar ‘N’ Yard, 135 12th Street, Oakland, United States

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