Time for schools to downsize California missions?

Many California school kids are familiar with the pride and excitement as they ever so carefully carry their Styrofoam and cardboard version of a California mission into their fourth-grade classroom. (Of course, this is quickly followed by dismay after that ambitious kid walks in with a model made from tiny adobe bricks and with a working fountain.)  A cherished tradition for many, the model-building is usually the highlight of the fourth-grade curriculum devoted to the study of California's Mission period.

But more educators are questioning whether other important parts of state history are being shortchanged with all the fuss over the Mission period, the San Diego Union Tribune reports. Some districts have already dropped the mission-building from the curriculum, and teachers have added more information about the dark side of the era, including the forced labor of many Native Americans who lived in the compounds.

Students at Sandburg Elementary School in Mira Mesa get a frank accounting of the mission era, without an assignment to build one.

“I teach the students that it was pretty much slavery, not something I like to celebrate,” said Donna Even, acting vice principal and a former fourth-grade teacher. “We learn about it and we move on.”

Not that it looks like the mini-missions will disappear from the classroom anytime soon. Says fourth-grade teacher Michelle Hackey:

“As soon as school starts, I have parents asking about the missions. 'When are they due? How much time will we have?' Everyone knows about the missions."

-- Jesus Sanchez

Photo: Ken Hively / Los Angeles Times

Comments

[Scott Golden]

I hope that the vice principal and ex-fourth grade teacher also remembered to declare that the "masters" of these "slaves" were Spanish missionaries, commissioned by the Catholic church. Wouldn't want the U.S. to take another hit for this......or was it the U.S.'s fault after all?

[Alex]

This is just another example of the secularization of American children.

[Alex]

This is just another example of the secularization of American children.

[susan]

It's about time this correction is made. Christopher Columbus has become demonized in L A by the Hispanics who see him as the first "racist anglo," and his Day isn't even celbrated in this city anymore. Which is a shame, because his navigation skills, and that period of history and WHY Columbus and the rules of Spain sought "the Americas," is very relevant. Spain's history at the time is also central to developments between the religions since: the Moors of Spain who were forced out by the Catholics and the Inquisition, along with the Jews, had contributed grand buildings and enabled a time when the religions lived cooperatively. You have to cover the bad with the good, and vice versa, not jump dump Columbus and the era.

I've visited missions in Arizona and oher western states, and in fact the Indian guides emphasize the slavery of their people, the diseases they got from the Spanish priests and invaders, and how they were whipped and beaten into service. Even here in L A at the Chumash Cultural Center in Thousand Oaks, a Chumash guide I had talked about how THEY're the real "native Amerans" not the Spaniards, who enslaved them, and treated American and Mayan Indians as less than equals, or even human.

This is a SPANISH/ Mexican oppression by Indians, in the name of the Catholic Church, which was as greedy and power-hungry as any government. It was NOT an American repression, and this is something the "Recinquista" Mexicans conveniently whitewash when they talk about how they were here first and have claims to America.

THAT s the legacy they created in the west: a handful of rich Spanish-born Mexicans and Catholic clergy enslaving local Indians into building their missions, working their huge ranches and being their servants. At no time did they encourage education of their peons, and we see that legacy today, with Mexico still living those class and racial distinctions, and forcing their masses into the US because they've never had a social commitment to their Indians and "lower classes."