“If the goal is to transcend the historical trauma and racial conflict over time, the first step is acknowledgement,” Linezo continued. “Family relations and family history are not points to be argued. We are born into situations that we cannot control. No one is responsible for what their ancestors have done, but we are all responsible for how we act today. So when dealing with heritage, culture, tradition and family relations mixed with multiple generations of historical trauma and underlying systemic and institutional racism in the community, it will take time to understand each other. It will take time to heal, and in some cases, it will take more than one lifetime.”
Artist Fights for Native American Representation in Pensacola Article and photos by Gina Castro or some, looking back at the lives of ancestors is painless. A simple story about how folks made it by without the riches of the modern world. For others, looking back at ancestors is painful. A tale of trauma leaving an invisible mark on each generation. Sometimes the difference depends on one’s race, religion or class, but history haunts us all the same. Pensacola is a living example of this from the heated debates over Lee Square and Columbus Day to the death of Tymar Crawford and the uncovering of T.T. Wentworth as a member of the KKK. As the first city, Pensacola can’t run from its history, so what can it do? If you ask Sean Linezo, he’d say acknowledge it.
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Linezo is a Pensacola native and an internationally recognized Creative Producer. He’s planted coffee with indigenous grandmothers in the remote mountain provinces of the Northern Philippines, seen the biggest waves on the planet in Nazaré, Portugal and produced films. His most recent being Going Deeper: Love letter to Nazaré. Visit vimeo. com/458503213 to view. Linezo’s most recent projects are fighting for Native American representation in Pensacola. Like many others, Linezo discovered that his family was affected by a dark moment in history: the Indian Removal Act. Seven generations ago, Linezo’s grandmother, along with her tribal sister, was forced to leave her tribe behind. “The story Uncle Sonny told was that she and her tribal sister were put on
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horseback and told to follow the North Star,” Linezo said. “Ever since then, my sisters and I have always wondered, ‘Why would you ever put your children on horseback at night time and tell them to follow the North Star?’ For me the answer is always, ‘Only in the worst circumstances.’ So I have accepted that my Native American ancestors were probably involved in a worst case scenario during the time of Indian Removal in Florida.” A unitary act of systematic genocide, the Indian Removal Act, authorized and supported by Andrew Jackson, forced Native Americans to abandon their land and trek thousands of miles West. Thousands of Native Americans were killed in the process. Linezo decided to take action in how Pensacola represented Native Americans after experiencing the T.T. Wentworth Museum’s permanent exhibit Pensacola Native Peoples. Since Wentworth is closed due to COVID-19, Downtown Crowd was not able to verify the appearance of the exhibit. Wentworth staff also didn’t return our calls for a comment. Linezo describes the exhibit as an empty nature scene with a plaque describing what the native peoples of Pensacola were like thousands of years ago.
“As I walked into the exhibit, the first thing I saw were the faces and names of the first three Spanish conquistadors who began colonization in Florida in 1516. I was baffled that the Native American exhibit started with the Spanish conquistadors. There are a few problems with representa-
