Decolonization Not Canonization
By Tiny Lisa Gray-Garcia/daughter of Dee, granddaughter of Mimi
The screams traveled in the wind. Some so faint you could hardly hear, some so loud you couldn’t see. A gust of hurt blew in my face as i walked onto the oddly silent stretch of mama earth called Mission Tierra in Fremont. California. The ancestral land of the Ohlone peoples. The screams belonged to the ancestors. they always greeted me when i walked onto to these stolen spaces called Missions, that are the locations of so many decades of colonial genocide to Native people of Turtle Island. Once the screams start- they never quiet .For the last few months myself and other POOR Magazine family of poverty and indigenous skolaz have been traveling to Missions across CalifAztlan along-side 1st Nations elders and revolutionaries to address the 21st century violence of granting saint-hood to Juniperra Serra by Pope Francis.
"As an Ohlone woman who has ancestors that were enslaved at both Mission Dolores in San Francisco and Mission San Jose in Fremont I am disgusted and appalled that the Roman Catholic Church is going through with the canonization of the genocidal maniac Junipero Serra," Explained Corrina Gould, 1st Nations warrior woman leader and truth revolutionary speaking to a convening in July at Mission Tierra entitled Serra- Saint or Sinner?
For the few people who still believe the colonizers washed history we are all taught in the “public” schools (mans skool) , the genocide perpetrated against Native people by the catholic church and its many agents aka “missionaries” is well-documented. There is no secret that in the lie of discovery the church played a huge role in the theft of land and Juniperra Serra, who spent 15 years in California was responsible for the torture and death of thousands of indigenous peoples including babies and mothers, was part of a reign of colonial terror that lasted hundreds of years and used the revolutionary African Jew named Jesus’ (Yeshua) name in vain.
“So many of my ancestors were killed because of missionary colonization,the truth needs to be told, “ thats why we indigenous people are here today, “ Kim DeOcampo spoke through tears to the room filled with nuns, priests and catholic parishiners who seemed very sold on the canonization of Serra as though it was a done deal.
Using indigenous bodies for brutal slave labor Juniperra Serra “founded” 9 of 21 Franciscan missions along the Pacific coast, Some of them became cities, like San Diego and San Francisco. And as usually is the case with the perpetrators of gentrification, mass -redevelopemt, globalization, land theft, colonialization and other acts that support the white supremacist power grid that is Amerikkklan, Juniperra Serra receives “accolades” and monuments at both the Capitol in Washington and California's Capitol in Sacramento. These colonial lies are funneled into our minds as 8 and nine year old children in our mans skool curriculum. We are told to make small “mission” mock-ups with friendly priests and happy indigenous people as part of a california “History” lesson.
But what is always missing, just like its missing from most of the historical lies written by the ruling class who has a stake in us collectively being numbed into white supermacy idealogy, is the real story of the mass torture, beatings, murder and sexual abuse of literally thousands of humans to ultimately establish the US.
They were all bound with rawhide ropes, and some were bleeding from wounds, and some children were tied to their mothers. The next day we saw some terrible things. Some of the runaway men were tied to sticks and beaten with straps. One chief was taken out to the open field and a young calf which had just died was skinned and the chief was sewed into the skin while it was yet warm. He was kept tied to a stake all day, but he died soon and they kept his corpse tied up...wrote Vasali Turkanoff- a Russian explorer who had witnessed the torture at the missions himself
If the claims of torture and abuse are questioned one need only read the personal diaries of Serra himself, documenting all his brutality like it was a clinical study. Babies and mamas, sexually and physically tortured and thrown over cliffs, peoples hands and fingers cut off, beaten until they bled to death, brutally punished if they didn’t pray , dress or speak in the way that satisfied the missionaries, the rivers of blood and destruction is deep and terrifying. This is the history we are never taught. We have to search for because it is intentionally buried under lies of organized religion, land theft and savior mythologies.
Actually what is documented in multiple texts and stories both by outsiders and 1st peoples across mama earth, are peoples who were filled with abundance, had a complex labyrinth of traditions, both spiritual and political, living well and thriving on their ancestral land and needing nothing from the people who came here with guns and diseases bent on theft and destruction. One recent book that documents Serra's genocide meticulously is Crown of Thorns by Elias Castillo
"Junipero Serra becoming a saint continues to reopen wounds of the past and continues the genocide of the survivors through invisablization and patronizing behavior that continues to say that they know what is best for the Indigenous people. This canonization does not only affect and harm California Indians but the many thousands of Indigenous people in this country that were put in mission schools and the continued missionization of indigenous people across the globe..." concluded Corrina
My Catholic Herstory of poverty and survival
My mama, a mixed race, Afro-puerta Rican/Taino and Roma Irish orphan and her mother, my grandmother a Roma Irish psychic were both saved and tortured by all that was the catholic church. Nuns, priests and convents played so many parts in our broken herstories. My mama, almost killed in countless catholic foster homes and then “saved” by nice nuns who took pity on her, an unprotected child of color, only to push her out into yet another foster home where she was starved and beaten, almost to death, still had an unspoken awe for the Catholic church. My grandmother, who was indigenous Celtic Roma ( gypsy) in her ways, altars, smoke, offerings, discussions with ancestors, levitation and powers colonizers would call pagan or sacrilige, but considered a “curandera, reader, psychic” by all the people of her community, and even after a life of poverty and low-wage domestic labor, still believed in everything that was the catholic church. With images of bloody white-ified Jesus hanging all over the tiny, broke-down one room she ended up in and yet she still loved her sum nuns, crediting them with her salvation when she was placed in a convent at 12 because she was pregnant with her fathers child.