#junipero serra

[kropotkindersurprise]

June 20 2020 - Native activists in Los Angeles, in solidarity with Black Lives Matter, tore down the statue of Junipero Serra, a Spanish Catholic inquisitor who oversaw the enslavement, torture and forced conversion of Native americans in modern day Mexico and the USA. [video]

[saints-illustrated]

Saint Junipero Serra Illustrator unknown

[raven-system]

I’m So Happy!!

Our school is probably going to change name and logo!!

The current name is Junipero Serra High. This is the logo: 

Seem a bit racist? Yeah.

We are the Serra Conquistadors. This has always rubbed me the wrong way.

I’ve never actually looked into who JS was, but I do know some of what the conquistadors did, and praising it is just terrible.

I just did some surface level looking, and yikes.

I know that the spanish conquest is important to some people of Spanish heritage however, (See The Entrada Pageant). Trust me, I know. I lived in New Mexico, that place feels like my home even though I’ve lived here in San Diego longer now. I’ve been surrounded by Spanish culture my entire life, but I don’t claim to have even a surface level understanding of it. The conquistadors did terrible things and it’s good that we’re taking steps to stop glorifying their actions. Can we do the founding fathers next? Pretty please America?

I’m not saying we should forget what happened, we just shouldn’t name things like schools and libraries and other things after them. Because I didn’t even know who JS was. I just knew we are the Serra Conquistadors. I’d be fine with being named after JS if perhaps they did an assembly every year talking about what he did - good and bad - so that we can put it into perspective a bit more. Our mascot though.. Yikes.

If anyone would like to comment on this, feel free! I could be entirely wrong and if you wanna show me that I am I’m all for that. I enjoy learning about other cultures, and if I’m hurting someone with my ignorance, I’d much rather have someone step in and correct me than to keep hurting people with said ignorance.

Sorry for the random infodumping. 

P.S. Please listen to that podcast, it’s really really good.

[canonizedandotherwise]

St Junípero Serra:

Pray for us that we will pass the Gospel message to our family and take the time to help them understand.

[theamericanparlor]

First Civil War Statues, Now Attacks On Religious Statues...History Is Under Attack In America- A statue of St. Junipera Serra in Mission Hills, outside Los Angeles, was vandalized last week and photos circulated online of red paint on the statue’s head and hands and the word “murder” painted in white on the statue.

Shameful!

Junipera Serra (1713 – 1784) was a Franciscan friar who founded missions in Baja California, the first western settlements in California.

Pope Francis Canonized him for sainthood in September, 2015

Serra often rebuffed soldier settlers meaning to take land from Native Americans, reminding them that the natives are “in their own country.”

Archaeology professor Reuben Mendoza of Cal State Monterrey Bay debunked this garbage during the controversy.

“When he died, many native peoples came to the mission for his burial. They openly wept. Others of his colleagues and even colonists believed that he would be made a saint because of the way he had lived his life, a self-effacing life of a martyr,” said Mendoza.

Serra’s “violent” history is a bogus lie which those who are quick to destroy and slow to research are actually swallowing.

It’s a myth that is now being used as justification to shamelessly deface statues of great importance to Californian religious communities and lovers of true history.

[explorations-sd]

Presidio park

[catholic-christian]

[photosthativetaken]

Statues at El Pueblo de Los Angeles - April 8, 2017