TILES OF SLAVERY The most dangerous history is the history that is dismissive of its atrocities. We weren't just coerced to convert into Catholicism, we were also brutally forced to build their colonial headquarters “church,” on our laps, on our backs and on the ever so sacred earth we acknowledge to be our mother. The genocidal act of eliminating a peoples culture, language and spirituality was crucial in the creation of the California mission system.

In this presentation Marlene and Serene Tafoya will illustrate an act of slavery by placing roof tiles over their thighs to demonstrate the physicality of creating a roof tile. It is said that this method of creating roof tiles is a myth but as we should know, the physical bodies of women and children were and are still used in every aspect of colonization. As indigenous people we have a responsibility to the ones before us and the ones that will come after us. Therefore, never letting history repeat itself by destroying and diminishing the present day tiles of slavery.