In August of 2015, President Obama took a bold step in restoring Mount McKinley to Denali, its original name. The renaming was a momentous signal of reverence to the native tradition of the Athabascan people of Alaska and all Native Americans. On the 125th anniversary of Stanford University, under the auspices of President Hennessy’s and Provost Etchemendy’s OpenXChange initiative, let’s reaffirm our commitment to the Indigenous peoples to whom Stanford is indebted — the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe — and to the Native students, faculty, staff, and alumni who have contributed immensely to our university.
The Muwekma Ohlone people’s history is both rich and regrettably unsung. They have a heritage that dates back generations, and inhabited this land long before Leland and Jane Stanford established their farm here. They are also active members of Stanford’s community today, attending the annual Stanford Powwow and welcome dinner held at the Native American Community Center. This is a historical legacy that goes unnoticed by many, but that we as an entire university should honor.
While Stanford’s legacy could not have been sustained without the Muwekma Ohlone people or their land, the ongoing legacy of this indigenous community is only slightly, if at all, known on our campus. The NACC, Muwekma-Tah-Ruk ethnic theme house, and the various sculpture gardens do a great job of honoring this history, but elsewhere in the university, it remains unjustly hidden.
Ironically, much of the space that could be used to celebrate this history is occupied by an individual who worked assiduously to bury it. Father Junipero Serra, a Franciscan friar recently canonized by Pope Francis, is best known as the founder of the mission system, a series of religious outposts that sought to convert California’s native population to Christianity. It is well-documented that the mission system, built primarily through forced Native labor, ultimately contributed to the decimation of the Native population residing along the west coast.
Father Serra’s legacy is featured prominently at Stanford, from the Serra undergraduate residence to the official university address at 450 Serra Mall. Given the national relevance of this conversation, it is time that we evaluate Father Serra’s relationship to our university, and whether his history is consistent with our values as a community.
We do not seek to erase history, we seek to face history. In debating the recent resolution authored by Undergraduate Senator and Native community member Leo Bird, the ASSU is helping to ignite an educational conversation about the values we all hold dear, and how we reconcile those values with the sometimes violent history we celebrate. Nothing about this conversation seeks to “whitewash;” rather, its ultimate aim is to increase this university’s engagement with the history of the land it occupies, as well as reaffirm the dignity of a valued part of our community.
Some hesitate to endorse the action of updating Father Serra’s name for fear of sliding down a slippery slope, where every name on campus would have to be changed. While we certainly don’t discourage constructive dialogue on other aspects of our history, this conversation is specifically about reaffirming Stanford’s matchless commitment to its Native community, and that task remains a difficult one so long as the founder of the mission system is so widely celebrated on campus. We want to spark an honest conversation on what makes Father Serra a Stanford hero.
Furthermore, if our community never did what was right for fear of sliding down a slippery slope, we would always sit idly atop an immoral high ground. People would never be able to remove Nazi propaganda or Confederate flags from public spaces. This neglects the responsibilities of our education espoused by Jane Stanford herself: to exercise a positive influence on behalf of humanity. We have an intellectual obligation to ask these questions, and a moral obligation to answer them with action.
This is not a slippery slope. This is a climb. This is an opportunity to intellectually engage with our history in pursuit of an enlightened future. Instead of conceptualizing the evaluation of Father Serra as the beginning of a downhill slide, let’s reimagine the journey as the start of a noble climb toward the more inclusive mountaintop that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. envisioned. Let’s reimagine the journey as an ascent toward the peak of newly renamed Denali that honors the dignity and resilience of the Athabascan people and all indigenous peoples of this land.
Atop this summit, we would all stand taller, stronger, freer than when we began the trek — just as King’s climb to the mountaintop brought our entire nation closer to a perfect union. We all love Stanford and want to do our part to strengthen our community. So let’s do that, together.
– Brandon Hill and John-Lancaster Finley
Contact Brandon Hill at bhill1 ‘at’ stanford.edu at John-Lancaster Finley at jfinley5 ‘at’ stanford.edu.