California Missions †Monuments or Tombstones? Essay -- Exploratory Es

California Missions – Monuments or Tombstones? Most Californians are introduced to the California Mission system in one of two ways: in their early education, or when they first visit a mission. Unfortunately, both methods are prone to simplification or bias in conveying the history of the missions. What this has led to is Californians who are ignorant of the history of the land they walk on. Consequently, visitors to the missions treat them as mere tourist attractions, instead of trying to embrace and understand the complex issues the missions represent. The issue was brought sharply into focus for me recently, when I was in the cemetery of Mission Santa Barbara. It was a sunny afternoon and the tiny graveyard was crowded with people. I stood there and took in the scene around me. I saw children eating candy bars and dropping the wrappers on the ground. A group of people were shouting across the cemetery to their companions, something about a tour bus. I could hear the humming of the soda machines on the other side of the wall. A woman was having a loud conversation on a cell-phone about her lunch. A man knocked me aside in his rush to get a photo of himself standing next to a statue of St. Francis. And there I stood, in the middle of it all, with the bodies of nearly four thousand Chumash beneath my feet. I didn't know whether to scream or cry. Don't you people know what you are walking on? Don't you know there are no grave markers because people were dying too fast for individual graves? I could almost feel the souls of the Chumash and the padres crying out. Don't these people know what this place is? The sad truth is, they don't know. And how could they? Californian kids usually study the missions in the third or... ...the soldiers and rancheros who lived there as well. The missions aren't just sugar cube churches. They are the place where one people had a sincere, yet terribly misguided goal of helping and integrating another people. Instead of helping and including them, they dominated and destroyed them. It is crucial for us to treat the missions as more than buildings to visit. We must envision the inhabitants' thoughts, feelings and lives. We do this not just because it is history, but because it is our history. This is what happened on the land we walk on when we visit the Missions. We shouldn't keep walking in ignorance. Elementary schools and the missions themselves need to present more of the actual history to people. It is only with that knowledge that visitors will truly appreciate and respect the missions for the valuable lessons and grave costs they represent.