SPECIAL REPORT: THANKSGIVING

PILGRIMS WEST: Pauline Chavez Bent of Huntington Beach has other ideas about when and where the first Thanksgiving was held. A professional genealogist, she cites the Spanish colonists who gave thanks April 30, 1598, on the banks of the Rio Grande, after their entire village endured hardships to make it to America from deep in Mexico--22 years before the Pilgrims. . . . “We need to teach American history to encompass all the people,” says Bent, whose ancestors were on that trip. The Rio Grande Thanksgiving is re-enacted each year in Texas.