Critical Mission Studies: California Indian and allied perspectives on the history of spanish catholic missions 

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.

Papers

Renya Ramirez, University of California, Santa Cruz
Collaboration, Decolonization, and the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band

Stanley Rodriguez, Kumeyaay Community College
“Remember the Kumeyaay Rebellion: A Pilgrimage to Sites of California Indian Resistance to Spanish Missions”

Theresa Gregor, California State University, Long Beach
“Restor(y)ing the Santa Ysabel Mission During Its Bicentennial (1818–2018); Reckoning with Critical Mission History”

Valentin Lopez, Amah Mutsun Tribal Band
A California Confessionario: Reckoning with the Sins of the Church in the California Missions

Bernard Gordillo, University of California, Los Angeles
Mission Sensoriums: Sounds, Silences, and Vestiges of the Mission Bell in California

Jennifer Scheper Hughes, University of California, Riverside, Presiding

Monday 12:30-2:30, Convention Center-30A (Upper Level East)