"A Founding Father of a Completely Different Sort"

"California's missions were not simply places where Franciscans acted out their ambitious dreams but sites where Indians, in the face of disease and overwhelming pressure to assimilate to European ways, persisted in their beliefs under the most difficult of circumstances. The missions are also a reminder of California's place in a world history shaped by conquest and underscored by tragedy. Serra helped lay a foundation for California, as flawed as that foundation may be, and his ever presence can remind us of the achievements and costs inherent in his doing so."

After curating a new exhibit, Steven W. Hackel in the Los Angeles Times considers the three-hundredth anniversary of Father Junípero Serra's birth.