JUDGING A STATUE
My novel, Colleen and the Statue, is a love story. However, it also answers the question, “What do we do about this Confederate statue?” That is, for this particular statue standing in Central Park of Mackenzie, Texas, my story gives a unique solution. Read the novel to know what it is. Personally, I think that each statue has its own story and we should judge it accordingly, asking: “Who put it up? Where was it put? What did it symbolize when it was erected? What does it symbolize now? Should we distinguish between the historical person and what that person’s statue stands for today?” I think this last question is the most important one. An example will help.
In California where I live, there are no Confederate statues. Here, the controversy is over statues of Junipero Serra. Indigenous people want them removed. White people, especially Hispanic Catholics, defend them, at times literally. Serra statues have been forcibly torn down in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Sacramento. At the end of June this year, Serra’s statue was preemptively relocated by leaders of San Gabriel Mission. Other missions founded by Father Serra have done the same—move the statues to a safer place. Recently, the dispute was over a Serra statue in downtown Ventura, standing in the plaza in front of City Hall. In late July 2020, it was quietly removed by the city fathers and placed in storage. Notably, this particular statue was not at Ventura’s Mission San Buenaventura, which at the time had its own Serra statue standing in front.
Who put up the Serra statue in the Ventura plaza? In 1935, during the economic pandemic known as the Great Depression, President FDR created the Federal Art Project, which was the visual arts arm of the Works Progress Administration. The Art Project was a relief measure to employ artists and artisans to create murals, paintings, graphic art, posters, photography, and sculpture. More than 10,000 out of work artisans were employed—at $23.60 a week—to provide art for municipal buildings and public spaces, among the artisans, sculptor Uno John Paulo Kangas. Kangas immigrated to the U.S. in 1913 at the age of nine, and grew up in Michigan, where he studied to be a sculptor. In the mid-1930s, out of work, he joined the Civilian Conservation Corps, another New Deal relief measure, and was sent to California. When someone read his application for the C.C.C. and saw he was a sculptor, he was transferred to the Federal Art Project. In 1935, he was commissioned to create his most important work, “Spirit of the C.C.C,” or “Iron Mike.” President Roosevelt himself unveiled the statue in Griffith Park. The enormous statue (14 feet high) honored the workers of the C.C.C. For whatever reason, it later simply disappeared.
What did Ventura’s Serra statue symbolize when it was erected? In 1936, Kangas was commissioned to create a statue of Junipero Serra, to be placed in front of Ventura City Hall. Thirty-two year old Kangas was one big Finn—descendent of Vikings—balding, with goatee, broad-shoulders, long arms, huge hands, and used to working with plaster of Paris to create a mold, and then mix concrete for the final version of his statues. He was Lutheran, never heard of Serra before he came to California, and not concerned with history or creating statue that looked anything like Serra. The art work of Kargas’ Serra statue is referred to as Art Deco, typical of the art of that period. The original concrete statue was a stylized and idealized image, like the C.C.C. “Iron Mike.” It is representational: a heroic and allegorical figure related to the image of Serra as “the Worker,” who founded and literally with his own two hands built the California missions. The finished statue had absolutely nothing to do with bringing Christianity to Indigenous people.
What did the Ventura statue later symbolize? In 1988, Junipero Serra was “beatified” by Pope Paul II. Beatification is recognition accorded by the Catholic Church of a dead person’s entrance into heaven and capacity to intercede on behalf of individuals who pray in his or her name. But the person is not yet a “saint.” To be a saint, the person must be “canonized” by the Pope. Canonization is a statement of the Church that the person enjoys the Beatific Vision of Heaven, and the faithful may freely celebrate and honor the Saint. To go from “blessed” to “saint,” requires evidence of miracles and a thorough examination of the life, works, and writings of the man, demonstrating the exemplary Christian virtue of the candidate. California Hispanics, and especially the Franciscan Order to which Serra belonged, wanted sainthood for Serra. Thus, in 1989, as part of the movement to obtain canonization for him, proponents of sainthood decided that the decaying concrete statue, having been exposed to the elements for more than fifty years, should be replaced by a bronze statue. Using a mold of the old statue, a new statue was created in bronze. Proponents of sainthood saw Serra as the protector of Native Californians from unscrupulous Spanish settlers and soldiers. They cast him as a miracle worker, promoter of agriculture, a “Washington-esque Founding Father,” and a humble immigrant from south of the border, who believed that the purpose of the missions was to spread the Gospel to those who had not been baptized. Finally, in 2015, Pope Francis canonized Serra, declaring that he was “one of the founding fathers of the United States … and a special patron of the Hispanic people of the country.” Thus, for thirty years, Serra’s bronze statue in front of Ventura City Hall represented a saint, who brought Christianity and salvation to the Indigenous people of California.
In 2020, however, as part of the movement to eradicate “systemic racism” from American culture and society, Indigenous people, including local bands of Chumash Indians, began demanding the removal of Serra’s two-ton bronze statue. They claimed that Serra, far from being a saint, was another “unaccountable Columbus,” and his statue was a symbol of all the horrors inflicted upon Indigenous people since the onset of Spanish colonization of the Americans 250 years ago. Coercion and force were basic to Serra’s mission system. He was as white supremist, who saw the Natives as inferior to Europeans and to be treated as children. If they left a mission without permission, they were hunted down by Spanish soldiers and flogged mercilessly when dragged back. They lived in the equivalent of slavery; a mission was the equivalent of a concentration camp. Their culture, religion, and languages were destroyed. His statue represented “Father Genocide,” responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of Indigenous people.
In mid-July 2020, the Ventura City Council voted to remove the statue, and early on the morning of July 24, workers, using a crane, unceremoniously lifted the statue from its place, and trucked it off to storage near Mission San Buenaventura. The Council acted swiftly, before the Indigenous people could vandalize it or tear it down by force, and before concerned White residents of Ventura could legally challenge the removal.
Should we distinguish between Junipero Serra, the man, and his statue, the icon? Anyone who studies the life and times of Junipero Serra, the Franciscan monk, can see that he was a complicated man in complicated times. And as you can see, the story of the statue is also complicated: first it was “the Worker”—symbol of the C.C.C. workers; then it became “the Saint”—Patron of the Hispanic people of California; and finally, it turned into “Father Genocide”—enslaver of Indigenous peoples, responsible for their near extinction. Was the man a saint or a devil? Not that simple. Only God knows. But as a symbol, his Ventura statue had to go.