Deborah Miranda (Ohlone Costanoan Esselen Nation) shares a video poem of intensity, and deep beauty as she discusses experiences of the California Missions. On her blog she writes “In the summer of 2014 I traveled to eight of the twenty-one California missions established by Franciscan priests from Spain during what is now called the Mission Era, 1769-1823. My purpose was to interview these venerable establishments in order to listen and scrupulously record for posterity their side of the historical controversy concerning alleged roles in the murder of tens of thousands of California Indians. Were these missions complicit in war crimes? Or were they, too, victims of Spanish colonial greed and conquest? What secrets did they tuck away in those adobe walls? My extensive research had not prepared me for the raw truth of these mission voices; not only was I fortunate enough to learn each mission’s secret name, never before revealed, but my sources seemed relieved to give their testimonies at last.“
