On a Mission to Relive History.

• Author: Wyels, Joyce Gregory
• Position: Spanish and Mexican heritage of California

In public events this fall, Californians will reflect on their Spanish and Mexican heritage shaped by colonizers in the name of God and glory

On the edge of the continent, seemingly imbued with limitless possibilities, the state of California has always looked to the future. In the mid-nineteenth century a gold strike lured fortune-seekers here from across the nation and around the globe. Today, Californians pride themselves on offering a glimpse of what the future holds for the rest of the country. So perhaps it's not surprising that residents of the Golden State tend to display a casual disregard for the past. Despite an abundance of Spanish place names, this collective amnesia is most acute in regard to California's Spanish/Mexican period. "There's a gap in people's consciousness," says historian Martha McGettigan, "between Indian California and the State of California."

One person who aims to fill that gap is Verna Jones, director of Sistahs' Productions in Los Angeles. Her vision: an ambitious, multi-pronged initiative encompassing Spanish foods and films, history and heritage, known as "Feria de California." Jones envisions festival-goers sampling tapas at cooking demonstrations, sipping Rioja at winemaker dinners, and probing the passionate rhythms of flamenco music and dance. Though visual and performing arts play a major part in the cross-cultural endeavor, Jones explains that Feria encompasses more than a festival: "We want to promote inclusion, to help people understand our commonality. We don't believe people should be erased from history." With tourism as part of the focus, she says, "We also hope to educate people in the importance of historic preservation, for example, those icons of California history, the missions."

Jones outlines the goals of Feria de California within sight of one of those missions, in the pleasant little town of Sonoma, at the entrance to California's wine country. Along the town's aptly named Spain Street, landmarks evoke both the Spanish/Mexican presence and its imminent demise. Literally and figuratively, Sonoma's Spanish-style plaza marks the end of the "Royal Road" for the far-flung Spanish Empire--the Final few steps of a dusty trail known as El Camino Real and a last-ditch effort at colonization.

Compared to some of the more glamorous missions farther south, Sonoma's Mission San Francisco Solano presents a modest face to passersby. But whatever Sonoma Mission lacks in grandeur, it makes up for in historical significance. This is the last of the California missions, founded in 1823, not trader the Spanish flag like the others, but as part of the newly independent Mexico.

On almost any weekday, the courtyard at Sonoma Mission buzzes with the sounds of schoolchildren busily weaving baskets or dipping candles or otherwise plunging into the activities that characterized mission life in its heyday. A volunteer docent, impersonating a Franciscan padre, explains that twenty-seven rooms once bordered the mission courtyard to accommodate nearly a thousand Indians. Many missions provide such hands-on history lessons to California schoolchildren. Some also feature "Living History Days" enacted by volunteers steeped in the stories of the characters they portray--Junipero Serra and Don Gaspar de Portola among the favorites. Taken together, these stories weave a drama of epic proportions involving beleaguered native peoples, priests, and pobladores, not to mention adventurers and entrepreneurs.

Spain had made good use of the mission concept in extending its domain over other colonies. One or two priests and a small contingent of soldiers would establish a temporary church, later to be enlarged by Indian labor, and set about converting and acculturating the natives. After a transition period, envisioned to last as little as ten years, the indigenous people would become Spanish citizens.

"It's hard for people to understand the zeal, and the thought that the only way to get to heaven was to be baptized," says Martha McGettigan. "The Spanish were very zealous in what...