| Submitted to Program Units |
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| 1: Catholic Studies Unit and Native Traditions in the Americas Unit |
Critical Mission Studies offers a radical revision of the history of the California missions and their legacies in the present from a California Indigenous perspective. Our use of the word “critical” makes transparent that colonialism, genocide, and historical trauma are central to the California missions, both in the past and in the present. The field of critical mission studies intervenes in conventional accounts of California Indian-Spanish relations during the mission period by foregrounding the perspectives and epistemologies of Native peoples. The objective is not simply to counterbalance conventional accounts with an Indigenous epistemological alternative, but also to correct the historical record and to dismantle the triumphalist narrative—both of which “continue to undermine the real and present consequences of the colonization and genocide” of Native peoples and cultures.
Our panelists are Kumeyaay, Iipay, and Amah Mutsun California Indian scholars, tribal leaders, and allied scholars/collaborators. We are hoping for broad co-sponsorship given the AAR’s location in San Diego, on the unceded lands of the Kumeyaay people. This panel takes place at a critical moment for California Indigenous peoples. During the summer of 2020, activists around the state toppled statues of Father Junípero Serra, long-celebrated as the “founder” of nine of the twenty-one California missions, challenging interpretations of him as “the founding father of California.” Many California Indian nations and communities condemned Serra as being responsible for the deaths of Indigenous peoples throughout California. The removal of Serra statues—inspired by the widespread removal of Confederate monuments following the murder of George Floyd—garnered broad media attention and fostered public debate.
Paper 1: “Remember the Kumeyaay Rebellion: A Pilgrimage to Sites of California Indian Resistance to Spanish Missions”
San Diego mission was the site of our largest Kumeyaay rebellion. We burned it several times, killing the missionary Father Luis Jayme and two others on November 5, 1775. The Kumeyaay destroyed missions in San Diego and Baja California, leaving them as rubble. The Kumeyaay still have our Native language because we burned the missions down. One difficult question that remains is why were some groups able to successfully resist Spanish missionization and keep a majority of their culture intact while others succumbed to the foreign missionizing of their people. This paper is based on community knowledge including histories gathered through the use of interviews and conversations during a pilgrimage I led to sites of Indian resistance to Spanish missionization on the U.S.-Mexican border
Paper 2: “Restor(y)ing the Santa Ysabel Mission During Its Bicentennial (1818–2018); Reckoning with Critical Mission History”
This paper uses an historical and ethnographical lens to document the restoration process and restor(y)ing of the Santa Ysabel Mission (Santa Ysabel Reservation in San Diego County. The Mission Myth is a settler colonial fantasy used to justify the eradication of First Peoples, our history, and our land tenure and stewardship. My use of the term “restor(y)ing” is derived from several critical Tribal theories and methodologies. By utilizing oral history and personal correspondence with tribal members, this talk features their perspectives and understanding about local Spanish Mission history to present a critical analysis of California Mission Studies. This talk combines the work of California American Indian community members, academics, allied researchers, and activist partners to center California “American Indian perspectives in telling the history of California Indian-Spanish relations during the mission period."
Paper 3: Collaboration, Decolonization, and the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band
This presentation will revolve around my work as a Ho-Chunk/Ojibwe schollar in collaboration with the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band (AMTB) to work towards decolonization including efforts to develop educational curriculum from an Indigenous perspective that can be incorporated into the California public schools. Respectful collaboration with the AMTB is essential, and includes developing a memorandum of understanding, following Amah Mutsun protocol, meeting regularly for feedback, and gaining tribal approval every step of the way. In order to decolonize educational curriculum, it takes Natives and non-Natives working together as allies in respectful collaboration. I will also discuss that decolonization must also include land back to California Indians. I will discuss how land was stolen from California Indians to create the University of California system so returning land to Indigenous people is of central important for decolonization.
Paper 4: A California Confessionario: Reckoning with the Sins of the Church in the California Missions
California Indian Amah Mutsun response to an early 19th century confessional manual written in Mutsun, an Ohlone language from northern California, by the missionary friar Felipe Arroyo de la Cuesta OFM. Spanish missionaries to the Americas published and disseminated confessionarios, confessional guides or handbooks that priests used to instruct Indigenous people through the sacrament, including in Alta California. In California, the sacrament of confession was also related to the Papal Bulls. Those that did not convert and practice confession were to be “vanquished”. What does it mean to be ‘vanquished” in the California Indian context? At Mission San Juan Bautista 19,421 Indigenous people died between 1797-1823. 3,200 were buried in a tiny graveyard, a mass grave, at San Juan Bautista. The California missions were not about conversion but about punishing a resistant population, about domination and control. The working definition of sin is problematic because it centers the Spanish view. The California Indian voice should become the moral standard in evaluating the crimes of the mission system and the colonizeers.
Paper 5: Mission Sensoriums: Sounds, Silences, and Vestiges of the Mission Bell in California
This paper examines the mission bell in California as an aural and visual instrument of colonization: from the crucial role of church bells and their sounds at the California missions during the Spanish and Mexican periods, to the processes that shaped the El Camino Real Bell Marker as an enduring presence in California tourism, and the Raincross Bell as emblematic of the business ventures booster-entrepreneur Frank A. Miller in the City of Riverside. I will argue that these historical developments transformed the mission bell into a Native Californian symbol of struggle and reckoning.
Abstract for Online Program Book (maximum 150 words)
Critical Mission Studies offers a radical revision of the history of the California missions and their legacies in the present from a California Indigenous perspective. Our use of the word “critical” makes transparent that colonialism, genocide, and historical trauma are central to the California missions, both in the past and in the present. The field of critical mission studies intervenes in conventional accounts of California Indian-Spanish relations during the mission period by foregrounding the perspectives and epistemologies of Native peoples. The objective is not simply to counterbalance conventional accounts with an Indigenous epistemological alternative, but also to correct the historical record and to dismantle the triumphalist narrative—both of which “continue to undermine the real and present consequences of the colonization and genocide” of Native peoples and cultures. Our panelists are Kumeyaay, Iipay, and Amah Mutsun California Indian scholars, tribal leaders, and allied scholars/collaborators.