Interpretive Message
We believe that the current interpretive message is one of erasure and glorifying the past. Through constructions of nostalgia and the lack of acknowledgment of the suffering Native Americans have experienced. The beauty of the current cemetery and mission gardens gives a false representation of all the hardships that the natives endured while in the mission. The main audience would be students, parents, tourists, and those interested in the history of the mission. Santa Clara’s Mission Church remains as a symbol of European dominance over the native Californians at the time and fails to acknowledge current Ohlone community members and descendants. The statue of Junipero Serra on campus stands in a location overlooking the native American cemetery, a symbol of Serra’s eternal control and judgment. The cemeteries location on campus shows ongoing European control of sacred native sites, and lack of native opportunity to pay their respects to their ancestors. The location of the current rose gardens effectively supports the theme of erasure because where the rose gardens are now is where the center of the mission complex used to be. In this place during the mission period, this is where all the action was in the mission and specifically where the native laborers were being taken advantage of and forced into unpaid work. The fact that this location today is the current rose gardens shows the juxtaposition from when it used to be a busy working place to now where it is a relaxing, calm, and beautiful place.