Story by Donald H. Harrison; Photos by Shor M. Masori
SAN DIEGO – A month after California Gov. Gavin Newsom apologized to Native Americans for the state’s early history of sanctioning murder of Indians and attempting the annihilation of their culture, the City of San Diego celebrated as the flag of the Kumeyaay nation on Tuesday, July 16, was hoisted over the spot where the city was founded exactly 250 years before.
No longer ignored, the Kumeyaay flag joined those of Spain, Mexico, and the United States which long have flown over Presidio Park in historic recognition of the sovereign countries that have ruled over San Diego.
A long line of speakers starting with San Diego’s Mayor Kevin Faulconer underscored the solemnity of the occasion. “While we cannot erase the painful history that our Native American community has experienced, we can stand together today and look toward the future,” Faulconer said. “In raising this flag, we are not only recognizing the Kumeyaay’s role in our past, ladies and gentlemen, but we are establishing that our Kumeyaay friends and neighbors are part of San Diego’s present and San Diego’s future.”
One of the final speakers, who received cheers and a standing ovation from many in the crowd of several hundred, was Angela Elliott-Santos, chairwoman of the Manzanita Band of Kumeyaay Indians. First she asked for and received a moment of silence to “honor our Kumeyaay ancestors and the suffering and despair that they endured throughout the last 250 years.”
She said her people are proud that San Diego is considered the birthplace of California, stressing that “it was the blood, sweat and tears of the Kumeyaay people that built the Presidio,” where in 1769 at the behest of Father Junipero Serra (who recently was elevated by the Catholic Church to sainthood) a mission and Spanish fort were constructed that changed the lives of the Kumeyaay forever.
Gavin’s apology to Native Americans and this ceremony, Elliott-Santos added, is an “enormous change” from the time that California’s earliest civil governors “paid a bounty on the heads of all California’s Native Americans and predicted our extermination was imminent. That prediction was wrong. Our ancestors fought with every breath to save our values and our most important traditions, knowing someday that we would rise again.”
“For these apologies and invitations to have real meaning,” the Manzanita tribal chairwoman added, “a long relationship has to be established – a true seat at the table for the indigenous people of California has to be accomplished; otherwise it is just words.”
She said history isn’t necessary pretty nor easy to accept, nor at times is the present, especially with the reports of children being taken from their immigrant families at the border.
“I have no reasonable answers as to why we continue to commit the same atrocities over and over again in the name of religion or patriotism,” she said. “I have been trying to find a way to understand how we are separating children from families again when we clearly know better. I say ‘we’ because we are all allowing this to happen again. That is why the Kumeyaay will keep reminding everyone what it is like to have your children ripped from your arms. Please don’t forget that when history tells this story later, it will be on our heads.”
Between Faulconer and Elliott-Santos, numerous high profile speakers stressed the importance of recognizing the evils of the past, reconciling in the present, and hoping for the strengthening of a diverse society in the future.
Adding to an emphasis on diversity were performances in native costumes of Mexican, Portuguese, and Vietnamese dances; Kumeyaay prayers and bird singing led by Kenneth Meza of the Jamul Indian Village, and the introduction of a variety of dignitaries in the audience including elected officials from Tijuana, Mexico, and Taichung, Taiwan, both of which are San Diego sister cities.
Toni Atkins represents the area including the Presidio in the State Senate – and is one of the few people in California history to have served first as Speaker of the Assembly and later as President pro tempore of the State Senate (her current position). She told the crowd it is important for future generations to understand the city’s history, “the way it really unfolded, the way it was really lived.”
“We owe it to our residents and our visitors to provide a thoughtful unvarnished account of what has happened in our magnificent corner of the world,” she added.
She thanked the Kumeyaay representatives on the program and in the audience for “insisting that the experience of your ancestors who lived here thousands of years before European settlers arrived are properly recognized and forever remembered.
“Looking back at history is often a celebratory exercise,” Atkins said. “It is also sometimes an uncomfortable one, but it is always instructive. It has lessons to teach us, lessons about things that we did right, things that we did wrong, the triumphs and the failures. If we are willing to learn, if we are willing to grow, history shows us a path toward a more inclusive future and a more enlightened society where diversity is celebrated, where culture is honored, where everyone is treated with dignity and respect.”
She and Assemblyman Todd Gloria, whose legislative district also includes the Presidio and nearby Old Town, as well as other parts of the city, presented Bill Lawrence, executive director of the San Diego History Center, with an award for coordinating the event on Presidio Hill in the shadow of the Junipero Serra Museum, which is run by the History Center.
Gloria went on to say that as a third generation San Diegan, who traces some of his ancestry to the Tlingit and Haida peoples of Alaska, he recognizes “the challenge of this milestone.”
“Those of us who are indigenous are not only proud of our cultural roots, but we are also proud to be Americans, as evidenced by our over-representation in the nation’s Armed Services. Four of my grandparents were either enlisted in the military or were military dependents. … We don’t gloss over the difficult parts of our history but we remember them, we shine a light on them, we learn from them, and … we grasp hands together and walk forward together.”
Dr. David Miller, a University of San Diego history professor who is co-editor of the Journal of San Diego History, said that the Kumeyaay creation story speaks of struggling twin creators, and over the years, San Diegans have seen the struggling twins of dominance and resistance, suffering and resilience, dispossession and permanence.
“Can an honest reckoning with the troubled legacies of the Mission [San Diego de Alcala] allow us to think constructively about contemporary issues of dispossession, racism and marginalization?” he asked rhetorically. “Are there elements of the ugly story of colonization that we may legitimately appreciate?”
John Morrell, the chair of the San Diego History Center, said on the 250th anniversary of the founding of Mission San Diego de Alcala and the Royal Presidio of San Diego, “we honor all who have come to the San Diego region,” and who have contributed to the “rich cultural fabric of San Diego.”
While no one from the Catholic Church which established California’s first mission here was included on the program, the Vice Consul of Spain, based in Los Angeles, Jose Manuel Gill, said his country is proud not only of Serra, who founded San Diego and other important cities of California, but also the Spanish explorers who touched on San Diego’s shores before him, including Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo who came in 1542 and Sebastian Vizcaino who arrived in 1602. Cabrillo, the European discoverer of this area, named it “San Miguel,” whereas Vizcaino, arriving 60 years later, gave the area the name it bears today: “San Diego.”
City Councilman Chris Ward, whose district is also one that includes Presidio Hill, commented that it is the “full recognition of our past that allows us to move forward stronger as a region.” He called for all communities to have a seat at the table of decision makers.
Rafael Castellanos, chairman of the San Diego Unified Port District, said the Kumeyaay people “understood and appreciated that San Diego Bay is really the heart of the region because it produces the resources, the fish, the shellfish, that have made this region thrive.”
“We have a great deal to learn from the Kumeyaay people with respect to making sure that the way we use San Diego Bay, the way that we use the land, the way that we use the water, is sustainable, and that we think not just about ourselves but about the future generations.”
Cody Martinez, chairman of the Sycuan Band of Kumeyaay Indians, turned the crowd’s attention back inland, relating that in 1875 an executive order signed by President U.S. Grant placed his band on 640 acres in the foothills of East County.
“Over the last 144 years, the story of the Kumeyaay has been one of survival, a story of unbreakable spirit after generations of systematic oppression. Today, things are better but there is still much work to be done for the benefit of the Kumeyaay people, and not just Kumeyaay people. We must strive harder to serve communities that historically did not have the access and opportunities, very similar to the Kumeyaay.”
While casinos on the reservations has brought economic improvements to some, but not all, the bands of Kumeyaay in San Diego County, “reservations are still in need of many of the basic services that urban communities here in San Diego take for granted every day,” the Sycuan chairman said.
He related that his children and their generation “represent the 6th generation of Sycuan members to grow up since 1875 on the Sycuan reservation and today we celebrate the opportunities that they now have before them. Today we celebrate a positive future of the Kumeyaay nation and the entire San Diego region growing together.”
The ceremony ended with Anthony Pico, the former chairman of the Viejas Band of Kumeyaay Indians, narrating as a Kumeyaay honor guard – all combat veterans of the United States military – ceremoniously unfurled the Kumeyaay flag, then had it blessed with prayers and sage smoke, and hoisted it up the flag pole to the cheers of the crowd.
Pico called it a moment for “healing of America’s wounds,” adding that the “Kumeyaay nation stands tall, with our fellow citizens.” He noted that his people have the right “to practice our culture, to govern our people, and to give thanks for the contributions that the Kumeyaay people make and continue to make” to their fellow citizens of the United States.
“We are proud to be citizens of the United States of America and our Kumeyaay nation,” Pico declared with emphasis.
Following the flag raising, emcee Alex Presha, the moderator of the KNSD-TV news show Politically Speaking, had the crowd form orderly lines to be taken by Old Town Trolley Tours to a parking lot near the CalTrans offices in Old Town San Diego, where most had left their automobiles.
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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted via donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com
If we truly want to recognize them, perhaps we can rename some things named “Mission” as “Kumeyay” and have at least one or two statues of the Kumeyay people not facing a restroom in Presidio Hill, and instead have a few more instead of the dozens to the Spanish conquerors?