Locating Absence: The Forgotten Presence of Monjeríos in Alta California Missions

Abstract

This article examines how California's historic mission sites represent the Native American women who worked in the missions and who were sequestered there in monjeríos (chaperoned dormitories for unmarried women). Three missions (San Luis Rey, San Juan Capistrano, and La Purísima Concepción) provide case histories of mission interpretations in which these women were completely absent, represented by signage only, or brought to visitors' attention through a recreated monjerio. However, even in the latter model, their lives are not fully represented: the monjerios were sites of punishment, a fact recorded in mission-era reports and letters but not indicated in the exhibit space.