California Missions Research Articles

Lands Never Trodden: The Franciscans and the California Missions by John J. O’Hagan (review)

Lands Never Trodden: The Franciscans and the California Missions by John J. O’Hagan (review)

Review Essay: The Life and Times of Junípero Serra, Junípero Serra: California’s Founding Father, Junípero Serra and the Legacies of the California Missions

Review Essay: The Life and Times of Junípero Serra, Junípero Serra: California’s Founding Father, Junípero Serra and the Legacies of the California Missions

Effect of dried California mission figs on minerals status and food replacement (828.12)

Background and Objective: Figs are a rich source of several minerals and fibers. We investigated the effect of consuming dried California Mission figs on different minerals, nutrients and the effect of adding figs to a self‐selected habitual diet on dietary patterns.Methods: A total of 88 subjects in a cross design study with the mean of age about 56 years were randomized to either eat their usual diet for 5 weeks or add dried California Mission figs (120 grams/day) to their usual diet for 5 weeks, then crossed over to the other group for another 5 weeks. Six 24‐hour dietary recalls and four blood samples were obtained from each subject.Results: Diets reported by 24 diet recall during the fig‐supplemented diet period had significantly higher calcium , and potassium in dietary and total phase (p value < 0.05). However, minerals reported by biochemical Analyses from blood sample were almost similar during figs‐added or usual diet. By eating figs, the estimated displacement suggests that an additional 4% dessert, 5% vegetables, 10% dairy products, 23% grain products, and 168% of beverages from other sources was eliminated.Conclusions: Daily consumption of figs may increase several minerals based on 24 hours recall. Minerals in blood samples were not significantly changed.

Navigating a Changing Continuum of Care with Heart

Background:The 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) is the most significant change in healthcare since the implementation of Medicare. In the face of reductions in reimbursement, healthcare organizations are seeking creative ways to reduce the cost of care delivery. The Kaiser Permanente Northern California (KPNC) mission is to provide high-quality, affordable healthcare and to improve the health of the members and the communities it serves. In alignment with this work, KPNC values the importance of excellence in care as well as the nurturing of the mind and spirit. The continuum of care, including home health and hospice services, are at the center of the evolving environment. Uncertainties and fast-paced innovations create tension and stress for home care leaders responsible for responding to and implementing change. Meeting these challenges requires incredible creativity and resilience. The framework that best meets these diverse needs is CaritasHeart.1 CaritasHeart brings together the philosophy, theory and framework of Watson's Caring Science,2 the “heart” of Caritas, and the scientifically validated methods of HeartMath.3Methods:To support the cultural change inherent in CaritasHeart, education was provided to management and staff in Caring Science and HeartMath. The management teams participated in a four-part “Leading with Care” series. Managers also participated with staff in half-day sessions that introduced the philosophy, theory, and framework of the Caring Science as well as self-care practices. The 7-hour HeartMath “Revitalizing Care” program was provided to 200 managers and staff members to enhance self-care, creativity, ease, and resilience and the understanding of how to be authentically present when providing care.Personal outcomes of participants were measured assessed using the HeartMath validated Personal and Organizational Quality Assessment-R2 (POQA) instrument. Participants completed the initial POQA self-assessment during part 1 and 2 weeks later during part II of the Revitalizing Care program. Reference values for the POQA are results from 5900 healthcare workers. Member satisfaction with care was measured using the Home Health Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers & Services (HH-CAHPS) percent “rate agency 9 or 10” score and the Family Evaluation of Hospice Services (FEHS) “Overall, how would you rate the care the patient received while under the care of hospice?” percent “excellent” score.Results:POQA results demonstrated each of the positive characteristics were above average at baseline and significantly improved in three areas: positive outlook (P < .001), gratitude (P < .01) and motivation (P < .001). Each of the six stress-related measures were below average at baseline and significantly improved (P < .001) and above average following 2 weeks of HeartMath use. HH-CAHPS “rate agency 9 or 10” scores improved 1.7 percentage points to 83.6%. FEHS scores for the period were not yet available at the time of this report.Conclusion:CaritasHeart was an effective leadership strategy to support the continuum and its staff within a constantly evolving healthcare environment.

“A Sketch of Some of the Earliest Kentucky Pioneers of Los Angeles,” by Stephen C. Foster

Nathaniel Pryor arrived in California in 1828 as a fur-trapper. He was jailed temporarily in San Diego, experienced the kindness of Californios, and found employment as a silversmith in southern California missions. He settled in Los Angeles, where he resided for over twenty years until his death in 1850. His friend Stephen C. Foster recounted Pryor’s story in 1887.

Mapping the Hemispheric Divide: The Colonial Americas in a Collaborative Context

La Gracia Triunfante en la vida de catharina tegakovita (“Grace triumphant in the life of catherine tekakwitha”), an account of the miraculous life of Kateri Tekakwitha, an Iroquois Indian from New France, traversed language and space to be published in Mexico City, New Spain, in 1724. Juan de Urtassum, a Basque Navarran Jesuit who had spent many years in Mexico, translated his fellow Jesuit Pierre Cholonec's hagiographic text from its original French (first published in Paris in 1717). Two appendixes accompanied the translation. In the first, a learned theological apology, the Mexican cleric Juan Castorena y Urúsa extolled the piety of indigenous women whom he deemed fit to be nuns; the second consisted of short narratives detailing the exemplary lives of New Spanish indigenous women. Urtassum and Castorena compiled the volume in order to advocate for the foundation of convents for indigenous women, presenting Tekakwitha's piety as evidence of indigenous women's capacity for Christian virtue (Díaz, Indigenous Writings 56; Greer, “Iroquois Virgin” 237). While Tekakwitha's sanctity helped Urtassum's case, his knowledge of and indeed interest in her provenance were scant. He locates the Iroquois Nation (the “Provincia de los Iraqueses”) on the northern frontier of New Spain (today's New Mexico), where indigenous groups had resisted Spanish attempts at colonization and evangelization for centuries. He “domesticates” the distant Iroquois for the New Spanish reader, comparing them with the Araucanian Indians of Chile, whose bravery Alonso de Ercilla immortalized in his epic poem La Araucana and who, though geographically distant from Mexico, seemed familiar through the Spanish colonial condition they shared with Urtassum's readers. In a telling moment, in the dedication to his patron that precedes the translation, Urtassum refers to “todo este emispherio” (“this entire hemisphere”). It is clear, however, that this reference encompasses only Spanish imperial possessions, including the recently founded California missions. The distant Iroquois Nation, located in geographically indistinct New France, does not figure in this geopolitical economy, nor do other American territories in the possession of rival imperial powers.

Fairness for all

Fairness for all

From Serra to Sancho: Music and Pageantry in the California Missions. By Craig H. Russell. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. - The Power of Song: Music and Dance in the Mission Communities of Northern New Spain, 1590–1810. By Kristin Dutcher Mann. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press and The Academy of American Franciscan History, 2010.

From Serra to Sancho: Music and Pageantry in the California Missions. By Craig H. Russell. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. - The Power of Song: Music and Dance in the Mission Communities of Northern New Spain, 1590–1810. By Kristin Dutcher Mann. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press and The Academy of American Franciscan History, 2010. - Volume 7 Issue 3

Luces y arquitectura en las iglesias coloniales de la Nueva España y del Perú

En esta investigación, les presento los resultados de un estudio sobre las iglesias coloniales de Nueva España y el Perú, que muestran cuál fue el propósito de los primeros arquitectos. Estas construcciones fueron diseñadas de tal manera que los haces de luz, especialmente los procedentes de las ventanas de la cúpula, marcasen días de gran importancia astronómica y eclesiástica. La orientación de las iglesias variaba según las ciudades (que generalmente estaban alineadas con los puntos cardinales, normalmente de Este a Oeste) mientras que las misiones rurales estaban orientadas normalmente hacia los solsticios. En muchas ocasiones, la planeación de las ciudades seguía la orientación de las iglesias –aunque hay excepciones–, y algunos centros coloniales todavía conservan una orientación equinoccial o solsticial.Hasta que Rubén Mendoza lo redescubrió en las misiones de California (2005, 2009), ni laicos y clérigos tenían noticia de este fenómeno. El trabajo que les presento aquí extiende su alcance desde las iglesias franciscanas de California hasta las de Texas de la misma orden, llegando también a las iglesias dominicas de México y Perú. Esta investigación muestra cómo el diseño de las iglesias coloniales está pensado para que la trayectoria de los rayos de luz marcara dentro de las iglesias el equinoccio, el solsticio y el día de cruce de cuartos (a mitad de camino entre los otros dos).

From Serra to Sancho: Music and Pageantry in the California Missions by Craig H. Russell (review)

Reviewed by: From Serra to Sancho: Music and Pageantry in the California Missions by Craig H. Russell Robert R. Grimes S.J. From Serra to Sancho: Music and Pageantry in the California Missions. By Craig H. Russell. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. 480 pp. $65.00. In a 1970s liturgical magazine an article appeared entitled "Pocahontas Never Sang Gregorian Chant," never considering the fact that she was baptized in the Church of England. Over many years of research on American Catholic church music the title has amused me as I have come across example after example of Native American Catholics employing chant, from the Mohawk and Passamaquoddy tribes of the Northeast to the missions of California. Although there have been important studies of the music of the Franciscan missions of California before, Craig Russell has produced what must be called a library of materials concerning musical life in and around the missions. The work is extensively documented. For example, chapter one contains thirty-five pages of text followed by twenty pages of footnotes. In addition, Oxford University Press maintains on their website an extensive array of additional documentation and resources collected by the author. In spite of this, the author says that he chose to write "a human narrative" rather than an encyclopedia. He has, in my opinion, actually succeeded at both. The title of this book refers to two Franciscan missionaries, Blessed Junipero Serra, the friar who founded and oversaw the Catholic missions in what is today the state of California, and Juan Bautista Sancho, in the author's estimation one of the most important musicians working in the early nineteenth century missions. The Franciscans took over the missions in Baja California after King [End Page 75] Carlos III of Spain ordered the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1768. These missions were soon handed over to the Dominicans while the Franciscans headed north to Alta California. Serra worked in the missions from the foundation of San Diego in 1769 until his death in 1784 at the Carmel Mission. Sancho arrived in Mexico from Europe in 1803 and worked in the Mission of San Antonio de Padua from shortly thereafter until his death in 1830. It is entirely possible that no one reader would be interested in every aspect of Russell's work. Conversely most everyone would find something of interest within its vast range. The introduction is a fine overview of the historiography of the California missions and would be a useful reading in American history and American Catholic Studies courses. Music theorists would find the second chapter of particular interest with its discussion of notation and modes. Historical musicologists will be fascinated by the presence of orchestral masses in early European classical style and the extensive manuscript research the author presents. Ethnomusicologists will find the discussion of dance and pageantry enlightening as well as the discussion of Native American music in the missions. Performers and choir directors will benefit from the performing editions of a number of mission-related works contained on the website. Historians will benefit from seeing life in the California missions in a new light and continuing this research with the many original documents and photographs included in both the book and website. In a work of this impressive scope it is inevitable that some errors can be found, particularly in the case of Catholic theology and practice. For example, the author speaks of a mass setting used on Good Friday (311), a day when no mass in permitted in Catholic worship. In another place the author uses "adoration" and "veneration" interchangeably in regard to the Blessed Mother (303-304) when only the latter is allowed. These are, however, small errors in a generally magnificent piece of scholarship. Average readers should not be dissuaded from reading From Serra to Sancho. They might well want to skip over some of the more technical sections of the volume, but should not overlook the photographic section of the website. Readers will encounter scenes ranging from the comic (a friar in a shed celebrating mass atop a clavichord while he accompanied himself) to the sublime (Native American orchestras at mass). Most of all, they will find the author...

Bridge to Wonder: Art as a Gospel of Beauty by Cecilia González-Andrieu

Reviewed by: Bridge to Wonder: Art as a Gospel of Beauty by Cecilia González-Andrieu Rebecca Berrú Davis (bio) Bridge to Wonder: Art as a Gospel of Beauty By Cecilia González-Andrieu. Waco, Texas: Baylor University Press, 2012. 250pp. ISBN 978-1602583511 As the book’s title, Bridge to Wonder: Art as a Gospel of Beauty intimates, Loyola Marymount assistant professor Cecilia González-Andrieu’s premise is that art as a gospel of beauty is “an announcement of the good news of our beloved status as children of God.” She asserts that, “In the beauty that delights us or breaks our heart, something is offered and understood, briefly, as wholeness and healing, and that “something” changes everything.” (37) This experience of beauty, or its absence, expedited by art, not only links us to God, but enables insight into our own or the world’s brokenness, engenders our community’s capacity for love and compassion, and has the potential to inspire, deepen and activate faith. With that said, theology does well when it pays attention to art’s transforming power. But how do theologians persuasively demonstrate that art is a viable source of theology? González-Andrieu shows us a way by naming art, in its broadest sense, the creative activity that unites spirit and matter. Whether it is drama, music, poetry or visual art, symbolic or narrative, these works are significant because of their power to mediate revelatory experience. This is what the arts do well. Thus, the arts (and the aesthetic experiences they evoke) are not only relevant to the theological discussion, they are necessary because “they are markers, pointers and reflections of the shimmering glow left in our world by the presence of God.” (23) They not only express and mediate God’s self-communication, but challenge us to see, respond, imagine and act. Making full use of a theological method, she proposes engaging art and religion in meaningful conversation with one another. González-Andrieu eloquently interlaces strands of theology, philosophy, art history and criticism. She draws from familiar sources in theological aesthetics: Aristotle, Pseudo-Dionysius, Abbot Suger, Jonathan Edwards, John Dewey, Hans von Balthasar, Paul Tillich, Frank Burch Brown and Roberto Goizueta. However, she also introduces the reader to new partners in the discussion, such as Von Ogden Vogt, Art and Religion (1948), Avery Dulles, Models of Revelation (1967), and particularly the insights of Pope John Paul II’s Letter to Artists (1999). Nonetheless, the work of her mentor, colleague and dear friend, Alejandro Garcia-Rivera, is a recognizable undercurrent throughout her book. She pushes further Garcia-Rivera’s appeal for those engaged in the work of theological aesthetics to attend to the experiences of diverse communities, as well as his challenge to artists to be responsive to the communities that call them forth. González-Andrieu does her best work in the chapters that describe, examine and address particular encounters with art. In Chapter Three, “In Search of Wonder,” she recounts her experience attending La Pastorela, a medieval shepherd’s play reenacted during the Christmas season at the California Mission of San Juan Baptista by Teatro Campesino’s cast of seasoned actors and local farmworkers. The classic narrative “of the triumph of the human capacity for goodness in the face of temptation” (118) is described in its local particularity as an experience that, for her and those in attendance, evokes wonder. Her point is that it is the experience of the beautiful that awakens love in us. This power of being awakened, asombrado in Spanish, then becomes a place where God is experienced. Wonder becomes revelatory. As wonder-filled beings, we are moved first to silence, to insight, and then to speech—a necessary process for imagining and then creating a better world. In Chapters Four and Five, González-Andrieu introduces us to Seeing Salvation: The Image of Christ an exhibit where art and religion was brought together at the United Kingdom’s National Gallery, February 26–May 7, 2000. She argues that its unexpected popular reception in light of culture’s “aggressive secularism,” demonstrates that “it is still possible to pick up signals of the transcendent to gain a...

Perceived Authenticity of California Missions

Perceived Authenticity of California Missions

Jo Mora and the Missions of California

Jo Mora and the Missions of California

Antiquity and the Renaissance in Oceanside: The European Legacy of the Last Judgment at Mission San Luis Rey de Francia

Like much of the art of the Upper California missions, the painting of the Last Judgment at Mission San Luis Rey de Francia reveals a long and vibrant pedigree in the European tradition. The composition is based on a Flemish print of a French masterpiece. Some elements of the French composition trace back to Classical and Renaissance works of art. This essay will identify these particular artistic details and explain how they made their way from Antiquity and Renaissance Rome, to Paris, Antwerp, Seville, Mexico City and, ultimately, to what is now Oceanside, California

From Ahogado to Zorrillo: external causes of mortality in the California missions

In recent decades, the literature on virgin soil epidemics has dominated scholarly discussions of Indian population decline in colonial America. Illness and disease – and the high mortality and low fertility that accompanied them – go a long way towards explaining the dramatic decline of the Indian population in Alta California after Spanish colonization began in 1769. But, there are myriad other factors that contributed to Indian depopulation in Spanish and Mexican California, and these have largely escaped the study of historians. Death cause information listed in the burial registers of the California missions and now available through the Early California Population Project suggests that Indian population decline in California before 1850 was accelerated by external factors, such as acts of violence, natural disasters, dangers associated with animals and insects, as well as work- and transportation-related mishaps. These external factors do not in themselves explain Indian population decline, but they add considerably to our understanding of life and death in early California and by extension other corners of colonial America, and they give us a richer understanding of how Indians lived, worked, died, and even prayed in Spanish and Mexican California.

Once-Daily Treatment With Beclomethasone Dipropionate Hydrofluoroalkane Nasal Aerosol (320 mcg/d) Is Not Associated With Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal Axis Suppression in Adolescent Subjects With Perennial Allergic Rhinitis

M O N D A Y 710 Effective Nasal Symptom Relief and Improvement in HealthRelated Quality of Life in Subjects with Perennial Allergic Rhinitis Following 6-Week Once-Daily Treatment with Beclomethasone Dipropionate Hydrofluoroalkane Nasal Aerosol W. Carr, E. O. Meltzer, A. Finn, P. M. Dorinsky, L. Kelley, S. A. Dunbar, S. K. Tantry; Allergy and Asthma Associates of Southern California Medical Group, Mission Viejo, CA, Allergy and Asthma Medical Group & Research Center, San Diego, CA, National Allergy, Asthma & Urticaria Centers of Charleston, Charleston, SC, Teva Branded Pharmaceutical Products RD P50.001). Moreover, for all 7 individual domains of the RQLQ, improvements from baseline were greater with BDP HFA than with placebo. Treatment with BDPHFA also resulted in a greater reduction from baseline in the average PNSS versus placebo (-1.22 [95% CI: -1.7, -0.7]; P<0.001). Greater improvements were also seen for individual physician-assessed nasal symptoms (nasal congestion, nasal itching, rhinorrhea, and sneezing) with BDP HFA than with placebo. CONCLUSIONS: This study demonstrated that BDP HFA nasal aerosol provides substantial relief of nasal symptoms and significant improvements in QOL in subjects with PAR. Thus, BDP HFA nasal aerosol should provide a new and effective treatment option for patients with PAR.

Californian Musicology

Craig Russell's book makes important contributions to the study of European music as it was brought to, implemented in, and shaped by the mission communities of Alta California. This field of inquiry by its nature questions received notions of musical historiography, especially as it pertains to the relationship of documentary and ethnographic evidence. Documents are sparse at best for much of this music, and those that survive represent the musical traditions of the Spanish colonizers. In disciplinary terms, this translates into an interrogation of the relationship between musicology and ethnomusicology. The authors, each representing one of these two fields, present a dialogue between the text under review and other existing work on California mission music and on the ethics and epistemology of postcolonial musicology. Further questions are duly raised about how Russell handles the great complexity of the mission situation, as regards colonial power relations, the applicability (or lack thereof) of Eurocentric historicity, and the delicate matter of representing the viewpoint of the California Indians involved in musical negotiations of culture under the mission system.

Effect of Consumption of Dried California Mission Figs on Lipid Concentrations

Background: Figs are a rich source of soluble fiber. We evaluated the effect of consuming dried California Mission figs on serum lipids in hyperlipidemic adults. Methods: In a crossover trial men and women aged 30–75 years with elevated low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (100–189 mg/dl) were randomized to add dried California Mission figs (120 g/day) to their usual diet for 5 weeks or eat their usual diet for 5 weeks, then crossed over to the other condition for another 5 weeks. Six 24-hour dietary recalls were obtained. Results: Low- and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol and triglyceride concentrations did not differ between usual and figs-added diets (Bonferroni-corrected p > 0.017), while total cholesterol tended to increase with fig consumption (p = 0.02). Total cholesterol increased in participants (n = 41) randomized to usual followed by figs-added diet (p = 0.01), but remained unchanged in subjects (n = 42) who started with figs-added followed by usual diet (p = 0.4). During the figs-added diet, soluble fiber intake was 12.6 ± 3.7 versus 8.2 ± 4.1 g/day in the usual diet (p < 0.0001). Sugar intake increased from 23.4 ± 6.5 to 32.2 ± 6.3% of kcal in the figs-added diet (p < 0.0001). Body weight did not change (p = 0.08). Conclusions: Daily consumption of figs did not reduce low-density lipoprotein cholesterol. Triglyceride concentrations were not significantly changed despite an increase in sugar intake.

Public interest anthropology, political market squares, and re-scripting dominance: from swallows to ‘race’ in San Juan Capistrano, CA

This article explores a disturbing irony of certain touristic festivals and heritage sites: although these festivals and sites tend to draw heavily on the language of shared heritage and community, the dominant narratives and cultural symbols embodied in these venues sometimes celebrate more traditional and problematic ‘racial,’ ethnic, and gender hierarchies. Via a case study of the annual swallows festival held in the California Mission town of San Juan Capistrano, this article offers an illustration of the value of embracing a public interest anthropology (PIA) framework for identifying and addressing the hidden racisms underlying some heritage tourism sites. Moreover, the article suggests that the political market square metaphor for conceptualizing tourism festival management could be productively reframed and paired with a PIA approach to facilitate more inclusive, color-blind approaches to developing tourism policy.

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

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.