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

California Missions Monuments or Tombst hotshots?Most Californians atomic number 18 introduced to the California Mission system in one of two ways in their early education, or when they first meet a mission. Unfortunately, both methods atomic number 18 prone to simplification or stroke in conveying the report of the missions. What this has led to is Californians who are ignorant of the history of the unload they walk on. Consequently, visitors to the missions treat them as mere tourist attractions, alternatively 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 burial ground of Mission Santa Barbara. It was a sunny afternoon and the tiny graveyard was crowded with nation. I stood there and took in the pictorial matter around me. I saw children eating candy bars and drop 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 tonic machines on the other side of the wall. A woman was having a bum conversation on a cell-phone about her lunch. A man knocked me divagation in his rush to get a photo of himself standing beside to a statue of St. Francis.And there I stood, in the middle of it all, with the bodies of nearly quaternion thousand Chumash beneath my feet. I didnt bash whether to scream or cry. Dont you people know what you are walking on? Dont you know there are no grave markers because people were dying too fast for undivided graves? I could almost feel the souls of the Chumash and the padres crying out. Dont these people know what this place is? The sad truth is, they dont 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 arent just sugar cube churches. They are the place where one people had a sincere, yet terribly misdirec t goal of helping and integrating another people. Instead of helping and including them, they reign and destroyed them. It is crucial for us to treat the missions as more than buildings to visit. We moldiness 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 shouldnt keep walking in ignorance. unproblematic schools and the missions themselves need to present more of the actual history to people. It is only with that association that visitors will truly appreciate and respect the missions for the valuable lessons and grave cost they represent.