Gavin Newsom signs law to replace Sacramento Junipero Serra statue with monument for tribes

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law on Friday that would replace a former statue of a controversial Catholic missionary on the grounds of Sacramento’s Capitol Park with a new monument that honors the region’s Native American tribes.

The bill-signing commemorated Native American Day. Other related bills included in Friday’s signing include a bill that would replace Columbus Day with Native American Day held in September and legislation that would protect Native American students from wearing “items of cultural significance” at high school graduations.

“Today’s action sends a powerful message from the grounds of Capitol Park across California underscoring the state’s commitment to reckoning with our past and working to advance a California for All built on our values of inclusion and equity,” said Newsom in a statement. “I’m proud to sign this long overdue legislation to honor the Native peoples who have called this land home since time immemorial and to further our important work in partnership with Native American communities to tackle the multi-faceted challenges facing California.”

Assembly Bill 338, authored by Assemblyman James C. Ramos, D-Highland, would strike a decades-old requirement to keep and maintain a monument of Spanish Missionary Junípero Serra, who was previously referred by Pope Francis as “the evangelizer of the West.”

In a statement, Ramos said the bill will “honor the Native people on whose land the Capitol now stands. It also allows us the opportunity to hear more about the devastating impact of the mission period on California’s first people.”

Protesters toppled Serra’s statue last summer during the nationwide protests spurred by the death of George Floyd, a Black man murdered by a white Minneapolis police officer. Serra statues in Los Angeles and San Francisco also fell at the hands of activists.

A marble sculpture of Christopher Columbus was removed last year from the Capitol Rotunda at the request of California Democrats, who called the Italian settler a “deeply polarizing historical figure given the deadly impact his arrival in this hemisphere had on Indigenous populations.”

Ramos said he did not condone the toppling of the Serra statue last year, but previously said it provided “an opportunity for us to explore why this figure from California’s founding has become a symbol of the enslavement and genocide for Native Americans.”

Ramos’ bill was co-sponsored by six Northern California tribes, including the Wilton Rancheria, Buena Vista Rancheria of Me-Wuk Indians, Chicken Ranch Rancheria of Me-Wuk Indians, Ione Band of Miwok Indians, Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians and the Tuolumne Band of Me-Wuk Indians.

California is home to the largest population of Native Americans in the U.S., according to the bill. About 1.6% of Californians identify as American Indian or Alaska Native, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.