The Missions

​... Analyzing Tommy Orange's There There

Before California was a state, the Missions were part of the Cathodic Church's scheme to assimilate Indians to Christianity. The Catholic Church used Indians as slaves to actually build the Missions. Many American Indians who trace their ancestry back to what is now California, carry the generational trauma caused from building those Missions.

By Rene' Locklear White and Angie Ford

In Bad Indians: A Tribal Memoir Deborah A. Miranda organized her book in a way to kill the Mission-story lie (xx). Her book is more than ink on paper it is her weapon. She is aiming to kill the Mission-story lie (xx) by telling the real Mission story from the Indian’s perspective. She describes the mission story as a “Fantasy Fairy Tale” and “kind of witchery” that has “to end” (xix). She said the lie is like a bad spirit. Not only has the Mission Project story helped kill the Indian, it teaches the Indian and others how to kill the Indian. Her book gives space for her people’s courageous voices as witnesses coming out of their silenced past (xx). 

​Part of her larger story helps readers get present to this and their own untold stories. Like her family history (the Mission story), other cultures have the kind of history that no one historically wants to talk about (genocide and slavery), so it is “never spoken” and “never mentioned by anyone” who lived it or caused it, as if by not talking about it, makes the ugly past (seem to) go away (152).

One way to get rid of the lies (or bad spirits) is to tell the truth. In “Post-Colonial Thought Experiment” Miranda describes fourth grade lesson plans for in the “Carmel Mission”, “Birmingham Plantation,” and “Dachau Concentration Camp” projects. Seeing these three lesson plans side-by-side makes it easy to see California’s one-sided mission-story. These examples break the silence and scream out the truth. 

We believe that colonization contributed to an unnatural center at Miranda's dad’s core; infected with bad bacteria. This bad bacterium (i.e., results of colonization) is like a bad spirit that needs a host. In this case, the bad bacteria is colonization and all of its byproducts and the hosts are American Indians. ​

The colonizers fed this bad bacteria (bad spirit) into Miranda’s family through colonization; forced upon American Indians to consume or die. The bad spirit ate away at her father from the inside of his Spirit out, manifesting in her dad’s life and Miranda’s as pain, suffering and death. 
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By digging and searching deeply, Miranda recognized that her dad was “born into a hard world” (173). She realizes that what happened to her dad is an unnatural part of his life. She also begins to ask herself and the reader, is there is “a way to reconcile this” brokenness (172)? Another words how can we kill the bacteria (the bad spirit)? 

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Work Cited
Miranda, Deborah A. (2013) Bad Indians: A Tribal Memoir. Heyday, pp. 150-208.
https://www.missionscalifornia.com/missions/san-francisco-de-asis/ 
Deborah Miranda - "Toppling Mission Monuments and Mythologies: A Conference" video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxeXO0BlgYQ

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