Through the Amah Mutsun Land Trust, the tribe is regaining it’s role as stewards and tenders of the lands traditionally occupied. “Creator gave us the responsibility to take care of Mother Earth and all living things,” said Valentin Lopez, tribal chairman. “We have to find a way to live up to that responsibility.” Santa Cruz Sentinel  Read more…

A proposal by the California Mission Foundation to have the state’s famed El Camino Real route declared a UNESCO Heritage Site is being bitterly opposed by state Indians who said it would only “honor and glorify the brutal conquest” of Indian lands. “Our tribe and many other California Tribes impacted by the California Mission system  Read more…

Some argue that California’s native peoples voluntarily joined the Spanish Missions founded by Junipero Serra in the 18th Century. “Not true,” Valentin Lopez of the Amah Mutsun told AlJazeera Television. “That’s why they had soldiers with them, to capture the Indians.”  https://vimeo.com/140805432

“We are stunned and we are in disbelief,” Valentin Lopez told CNN after the canonization of Junipero Serra in Sept. 23, 2015 in Washington, DC.

Native American activists and advocates met Tuesday, Sept. 22, in Washington, D.C., for one last-ditch effort to draw attention to their objection over the canonization of 18th-century Franciscan friar Junípero Serra. Read details in the National Catholic Reporter

In a letter to Pope Francis outlining the reasons the Amah Mutson people oppose the canonization of Junipero Serra, Tribal ChairmanValentin Lopez says “Undoubtedly what puzzles and hurts us most is how the Catholic Church has ignored the humanity of our ancestors.” Read: Letter to the Pope Sept 2015

Public Radio Station KALW featured Aman Mutsun Tribal Chairman Valentin Lopez in a discussion of the issues surrounding Junipero Serra during the program Call In on Sept. 14, 2015.  Listen at http://kalw.org/term/elias-castillo#stream/0

A report written by Vinnie Rotondaro in the National Catholic Reporter explores the controversy surrounding Junipero Serra

Serra Gate: A Fabrication of a Saint  By Christine Grabowski, Ph.D.  There is a scurrilous fabrication being disseminated by the Catholic Church regarding Junípero Serra, the missionary whom Pope Francis intends to canonize on September 23, 2015.The attached file is the English translation from a book published by Antonine Tibesar, “Writings of Junipero Serra,” Vol. 1, Published  Read more…

The Southern California Tribal Chairmen’s Association, in an August 2015 letter to Pope Francis, opposes the canonization of the Franciscan Friar Junipero Serra. Fr. Serra was responsible for founding and building, by means of the forced labor of our Native ancestors, nine of the twenty-one Spanish Catholic missions that were eventually built on the traditional  Read more…