The Mission Ahead

The San Fernando Mission, celebrating its bicentennial, stands as a reminder of the San Fernando Valley’s complex history. In hindsight, the mission’s original intent, to ensure a Spanish presence in California by creating a productive citizenry of converted natives, did not succeed as planned and decimated a native culture. However, the mission remains a central part of the Valley’s past, and among the questions we face today is how to view its historical significance. ANNA MARIE STOLLEY talked with people who have studied the wide-ranging cultural influences the San Fernando Mission has had in the Valley, and asked them about the role the mission should play in the future.

MARTIN ELI WEIL, restoration architect and consultant, Los Angeles

The missions, including the Mission San Fernando have been a source of inspiration for architects and others in Southern California and beyond since the late 19th century. When the Americans from the East began to arrive, they brought with them an architectural vocabulary of their own. But they soon began to draw from the Spanish tradition. In the 1890s, architects began designing what we have come to know as mission revival architecture. Houses were covered in stucco and had a circular top, the parapet, in the front. Eventually architects moved away from the Spanish influence, although they came back to it again in the 1920s in a Spanish revival period. These buildings not only had the stucco, but they also had the red tile roofs. Houses were built with courtyards, colorful Mexican tiles and big red tiles for the floors. The Spanish revival lost its momentum after a while, but the Spanish influence returns again and again.

Now we see the mission style in many of our public buildings, especially shopping malls. My prediction is that it will continue to go in and out of favor. We will probably always see the stucco walls and the red tile roofs. As for the other details, such as the intricate detailing, who knows? It depends how historically accurate we want to be.

I prefer that we create mission-style buildings with a complete understanding of our roots. After all, our complex history is one of the things that makes this region unique from other parts of the country.

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BILL FULTON, professional urban planner and author of “The Reluctant Metropolis,” Ventura

The Mission San Fernando has helped shape the urban pattern of the Los Angeles area. The few obvious transportation routes extending from downtown to the Valley were established hundreds of years ago--routes going to and from the mission and what is now downtown Los Angeles. While downtown was a civilian encampment of the Mexican government, the most important other establishments were the missions, essentially one in each valley. Our major freeway system, and therefore much of our development, comes from patterns started hundreds of years ago. If you look carefully in the Valley, you find quite a few pre-American landmarks practically obliterated by suburban development.

I think the important thing for the Valley to do in the future is to create a sense of place for itself, using historical landmarks such as the mission, as guideposts for understanding the area.

There’s a feeling in Los Angeles and especially the Valley, that history is not important. But with no wide open spaces to build on anymore, the Valley will have to look closely at the neighborhoods it has and find ways to make these areas more meaningful places. You can orient a whole sense of community around a single place, especially one of such historical significance. This is a way to differentiate communities.

Over time, as the Valley gets redeveloped, existing benchmarks like the mission will increase in significance.

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MARK RAAB, professor of anthropology at Cal State Northridge.

The Mission San Fernando represents an entire historical period that shapes what we are now--our land divisions, our cultural traditions. It will always be an important part of the Valley’s history, and it is a spiritual center to people of the Roman Catholic faith. The mission also contains documents useful for reconstructing the history of both the Europeans and the Native Americans already in the Valley. The Mission San Fernando was created as part of the Spanish plan to establish a strong presence in California. The Spanish wanted to prevent the other European nations from settling in California, and they wanted to convert the Indian population into loyal and productive citizens of Spain.

There have been many misconceptions about that time period. One is that the Spanish created the missions for the purpose of destroying the Indian people. They did not.

But there’s no question that the Spanish wanted the Indians to abandon their own culture--which the Spanish regarded as primitive--in favor of a way of life more compatible with the Spanish political and economic system.

The Indians continued for a certain time to practice certain elements of their culture, although they were actively discouraged from speaking their own language or practicing their rituals. As a result, there’s an awful lot we don’t know about the Indians--rituals, religious beliefs, economic practices or ideas about art or philosophy.

I would like to see the Mission San Fernando working more with the Native Americans to help revive their culture. The missions are storehouses of history and culture, and if we can get beyond name-calling, we can work together to get a more accurate understanding of that time period, and perhaps, work together to revive the Native American culture.

There are efforts underway in Santa Barbara to reconstruct the Chumash language. It seems to me a worthy goal would be for the mission to become a hub of such activity.

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DAVID HONDA, chairman, the Valley Economic Development Center Inc.

The Valley itself has changed so much over the years, from an agricultural district to a mega-industrial center. But as the orchards have turned int homes and industrial complexes, the mission has stayed. It is a tranquil place. You feel a sense of peace when you walk through it.

We need to keep the mission and preserve its history for future generations, so that they too can experience its tranquillity.

We need to remember the lessons that the Mission San Fernando can teach us. Think about Father Junipero Serra going through the difficulties of building the missions in California. He persevered through difficulties such as war and adverse weather conditions--the fires and earthquakes. Maybe hard work and perseverance are not taught in school these days, but we can learn about such things when we study the mission. We here in the Valley face our own difficulties, we have our own wars and adverse conditions--the fires and earthquakes. Maybe hard work and perseverance are not taught in school these days, but we can learn about such things when we study the mission.

For me, the mission is a sort of inner sanctum. It is a spiritual place. The Valley has become a major metropolitan area, but we shouldn’t lose our spirituality.

You have to build from within your heart, not just your checkbook. I’m a developer. Most of the time we are called cold and ruthless, but you need to have a sense of heart.

Yes, we have all this high-tech stuff--beepers, computers--but we mustn’t lose sight of where we come from. The mission is a good place for remembering our history, so I hope the people here will learn to relish in it and enjoy it.

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CATHERINE MULHOLLAND, local historian, granddaughter of William Mulholland.

I feel a deep connection with the mission. While I was growing up in the Valley, when it was mainly rural, it was an important central place. As a child, I attended fiestas and open-pit barbecues there. My maternal great-grandfather was always a prominent figure in these fiestas, and sometimes he would ride a stagecoach in a parade, and I would ride with him. Then there would be great speeches, extolling the virtues of progress, as we did back then. My relatives participated in fund-raising events for the mission restoration, such as candle lighting ceremonies. I was also married in the mission. For my husband, a Catholic, it was the ideal place to be married. For me, it felt very comfortable and appropriate. It was like going home.

Growing up, I learned the story of the founding of the missions, but with little talk of Native Americans.

The missions were already part of California history before the Americans even came. For a while, we didn’t learn about that part of history in school--my mother didn’t--but by the time I went to school, we did. I would hope that we would continue to honor the San Fernando Mission, that it would retain its importance as a reminder of our Spanish history, but that we would also honor the Indian people. I would like to see the restoration work continued, as the mission is so deeply ingrained in our history. Also, in the hustle bustle of the modern world, it’s nice that it has been restored for liturgical purposes. It seems appropriate, as its original intent was as a place of worship, and I would hope that would continue.