WASHINGTON — A California sculpture almost 3,000 miles away from home stood for nearly a century without much public controversy — until now.
Statues of Father Junipero Serra were largely uncontroversial until knowledge of how Native Americans were treated in the California missions he created became more publicly widespread.
California donated a bronze statue of Serra to the United States Capitol’s National Statuary Hall Collection in 1931 and he remains in this place of prominence today. However, almost a century later amid a reexamination of monuments and what values they communicate, many California locations have removed Serra’s likeness.
