After reading the articles and watching the video in this module, complete the discussion below. There are 4 parts to this discussion. Part A deals with the legacy of the missions in LA, Part B deals with the Treaty of Cahuenga, and Part C covers Chapter 1 of Gloria Anzaldúa’s Borderlands/La Frontera, and Part D deals with contemporary artist collective Postcommodity that makes works of art to reflect upon the history of places, migrations, and cultures. Please be sure to answer all questions based on what you have read in the module.
Please note: since there are many parts to this discussion, I ask that you please label each section of your initial post (Part A, B, C, and D).
PART A: DISCUSSION QUESTIONS FROM LA TIMES ARTICLE:
In the LA Times article, Ever Velazquez is quoted saying the following: “ ‘As a child growing up in Los Angeles and being forced to do a missions project in school — which was a bunch of lies,’ she says, ‘I knew my history and I know why it was important, and that’s why it was important to bring the families and the children here.’”
PART A QUESTION: Did you learn about the missions prior to taking this class, and if so, do you remember some of the things you learned? If you learned about the missions, how much did you learn about the mission structure’s brutality toward indigenous peoples? If you do not remember learning about the missions at all, why do you think that might be the case? (respond in 2-3 full sentences)
PART B: TREATY DISCUSSION:
After reading the articles about the Cahuenga Treaty in the module, compare the two quotes below. The first is from the section on “Allegory and History” from the USC Title Guarantee and Trust Building gallery (Links to an external site.). The second is from the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs (Links to an external site.):
“Here Ballin depicts a triumphant version of Los Angeles’ transition to becoming an American state, casting that transition as dignified and disciplined, when in reality, claims to land and resources were hotly contested for decades after the Treaty of Cahuenga. Some Anglos unlawfully seized land from those holding disenos (land grant contracts issued by the Mexican government), others refused to recognize their legitimacy, and real estate speculators and squatters often flouted existing property claims.”
“In a reenactment of the signing of a document by representatives of Mexico and the United States that became known as the Treaty of Cahuenga, signatures of General Andres Pico and Lt. Col. John C. Fremont ended hostilities in the state, creating Peace with Honor.”
PART B QUESTIONS:
Explain the differences in the way the the way the “Allegory and History” of the Title Guarantee and Trust Building describes the Treaty of Cahuenga versus the way the Department of Cultural Affairs describes it. Based on what you read in these and other articles in this module, what messages about the treaty do you think is being conveyed? Do you find one descriiption more reliable than the other? If so, why? If not, why not? (respond in at least 3 full sentences)
What are your thoughts about re-enacting an event like the signing of this treaty that led to the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and the surrender of half of Mexico’s territory to the United States? (respond in at least 1-2 full sentences)
PART C: Gloria Anzaldúa:
After reading Chapter 1 of Borderlands/La Frontera, titled “The Homeland, Aztlán,” answer the following questions:
PART C QUESTIONS:
C1: What does the idea of the borderland/la frontera mean to Anzaldúa? This could include a range of responses. Please quote from the text to help support your response. (respond in at least 2 sentences).
C2: Describe one example from the text where Anzaldúa relates her own personal or familial history with the history of the borderlands she describes. (respond in at least 2 sentences)
C3: Using a quote from Anzaldúa’s poem at the beginning of the chapter (starting with “Wind tugging at my sleeve…”), explain how the quote you choose relates to the rest of the chapter. What is Anzaldúa trying to convey through her poem? How does the poetic aspect of the text bring something additional to the personal narrative and history she writes about in this chapter? (respond in at least 3 sentences)
PART D: POSTCOMMODITY:
After watching the Art21 segment on Postcommodity, answer the questions below:
PART D QUESTIONS: Using details about the way the artworks look and function, describe an example of Postcommodity’s art installations (the art works they installed across the US/Mexico border, in Chicago, or in Los Angeles). How do these works relate to the ideas or concepts you have been learning about in this module (e.g., borderlands, migration, identity)? (respond in 2-3 full sentences)
You might notice this week includes a number of components in the discussion section. Please give yourself plenty of time to carefully read over and fully answer each component.
Content Warning: Some of the readings in this module, especially the text by Gloria Anzaldúa, mention violence and sexual violence. Please message me if you have concerns.
Note about the Gloria Anzaldúa text: In this module, you will be asked to read Chapter 1 of a book by Gloria Anzaldúa. This chapter comes from a book called Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza. The book is a mix of history, memoir, and poetry and has influenced countless artists, writers, activists, and scholars. While the preface to the text is not part of the formal assignment, I want to suggest that you go ahead and read it as well (it is only a couple pages) as it gives you a better understanding of the intention of the text and the motivation for Anzaldúa writing it. This book was first published in 1987, so some of the information she was writing about at the time and some of the terminology she uses has shifted somewhat, but many of the same issues she discusses continue today. Anzaldúa’s focus is on the borderlands of Mexico with Texas, but many of the stories and histories she relays are very relevant to Los Angeles culture and history as well.
Read the following Los Angeles Times article by Carolina A. Miranda, “At Los Angeles toppling of Junipero Serra statue, activists want full history told,” from June 20, 2020. You will be asked to answer questions about this article in Part A of the discussion at the end of this module.
Details
Full Text
It began with a prayer and ended with a loud clunk.
On Saturday afternoon, a group of about five dozen indigenous activists of all ages — children and elders included — gathered at Father Serra Park in downtown Los Angeles, just south of Olvera Street. As Tataviam/Chumash elder Alan Salazar burned sage and invoked the spirit of his ancestors, a group of young activists bound the nearby statue of Father Junipero Serra with ropes and tore him off his pedestal to chants of “Take it down! Take it down!”
After the statue flew off its pedestal, the crowd erupted with shouts and drumming.
Statues of Serra, the 18th century Franciscan friar who served as principal architect of the California mission system during the era of Spanish colonization, have long been a flashpoint among indigenous activists. The mission system was designed to convert and acculturate the Native population to Catholicism and European culture, and this was done by confining them to missions up and down the coast. Natives who tried to escape were captured. Those who disobeyed were beaten. Indigenous beliefs and customs were banned.
Nonetheless, the Catholic Church — quite controversially — canonized Serra in 2015.
“Mass incarceration comes from the mission system,” says Joel Garcia, a cultural worker of indigenous Huichol background who was in attendance at Saturday’s toppling, and was part of a group of activists that pressed to have the statue of Christopher Columbus removed from Grand Park in 2018. “It’s important that what is going on doesn’t overshadow what happened in California.”
Salazar, a long-time activist in indigenous cultural causes, says that he wanted to offer the blessing for the toppling because of his own family’s history.
“My family was brought to the San Fernando mission in 1799,” he says. “So when I talk about Native people who lost their culture, their language and their lives — and were worked like slaves at the missions — I’m talking about my great-great-great-great-grandparents.”
The statue of Serra, holding aloft a cross and bearing a model of a Spanish mission, was first installed in the downtown area by the Knights of Columbus in 1932. An early, undated photograph in the collection of the California Historical Society at USC shows it occupying a corner near Spring Street and Sunset Boulevard (now Cesar Chavez Avenue). For many years, the statue has occupied a somewhat indistinct perch in Father Serra Park, a small plot of land wedged between a freeway on-ramp and the Pueblo de Los Angeles Historical Monument.
Over the years, depictions of Serra have been protested and vandalized. In 2018, Stanford University removed Serra’s name from various campus buildings. On Thursday, officials in Ventura announced that they would remove the statue that stands in front of Ventura City Hall and place it in “a more appropriate non-public location.” On Friday, protesters in San Francisco toppled a statue of Serra in Golden Gate Park.
Ventura Mayor Matt LaVere, the Barbareño/Venureño Band of Mission Indians and Father Tom Elewaut issue a joint statement agreeing to move a statue of missionary Junipero Serra.
The Los Angeles action was peaceful — no police were present — and the vibe was more familial ceremony than protest.
After the statue was removed, a young activist named Chynna (she declined to give a surname) placed fruits on the statue’s plinth, turning it into an informal altar. Nearby, others laid flowers around Serra’s bronze form, which lay face-down on the pavement. Another group laid out an offering of fruit in the middle of the park, to which others added their own objects.
Ever Velazquez, an artist who was in attendance, says it is time to reframe the narrative around the Spanish missions.
“As a child growing up in Los Angeles and being forced to do a missions project in school — which was a bunch of lies,” she says, “I knew my history and I know why it was important, and that’s why it was important to bring the families and the children here.”
In a statement issued via email on Saturday afternoon, organizers of the action (a loose group of unnamed artists and activists) say they see the toppling as a beginning, not an end.
“It is time for reconciliation and with that, it is time for the WHOLE truth, all sides of the history need to be told,” reads the statement. “Not just for us, but for future generations.”
Word count: 733
Copyright Los Angeles Times Communications LLC Jun 20, 2020
Treaty of Cahuenga and Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo readings
Read the following texts (click on and follow each link) about the Treaty of Cahuenga and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. These texts will be essential for answering Part B of the discussion and for the quiz at the end of this module. Please note that these are very short texts to provide brief historical background for this module, but none of these texts capture the egregious violence of settler colonialism that led to the making of Los Angeles.
“Battlefield LA” (Links to an external site.) by Nathan Masters for KCET, which provides historical background about the Treaty of Cahuenga, the section on “Allegory and History” from the USC Title Guarantee and Trust Building gallery (Links to an external site.), which was a series of murals made for this iconic Los Angeles building in the 1930s (click through the tabs below the image), and the very brief descriiption of the Treaty of Cahuenga on the website of the Department of Cultural Affairs (scroll down on the website). (Links to an external site.)
Please also read the following brief introductions to the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which followed the Treaty of Cahuenga and led to the annexation of Mexican territories:
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, brief introduction and excerpt (Links to an external site.) by the City University of New York.
Mexican American War, brief introduction (Links to an external site.) by PBS.
Two maps of Mexico and the United States. One shows Mexican territory as of 1830 and the other shows the annexation of nearly half of Mexico to the U.S.
These maps show the territories lost after the Mexican American War and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.
On the following page you will access the reading by Gloria Anzaldúa. Please refer to the module overview (3.1) for information about this text as well as the discussion questions that you will have to answer as described in the discussion page. (if yiu have ) later
After reading the articles and watching the video in this module, complete the discussion below. There are 4 parts to this discussion. Part A deals with the legacy of the missions in LA, Part B deals with the Treaty of Cahuenga, and Part C covers Chapter 1 of Gloria Anzaldúa’s Borderlands/La Frontera, and Part D deals with contemporary artist collective Postcommodity that makes works of art to reflect upon the history of places, migrations, and cultures. Please be sure to answer all questions based on what you have read in the module. Part E asks you to respond to two classmates’ posts.
