Talk Explores Five Missions In Mexico
Five missions in the majestic mountains of northern Querétaro will be the focus of a free lecture Tuesday, April 8, from 3:30-5 p.m. in Ƶ’s Founders Dining Room. Visiting scholar Araceli Ardón will lecture on the magnificent churches in “The Missions of Father Serra in Querétaro, Mexico.” A reception will follow.
Father Junípero Serra and his fellow Franciscans set out to evangelize the semi-nomadic Indian tribes who lived in Querétaro in the 1750s as he did later in California. Within a few years, he established five missions in the area, now famous for their magnificently painted and sculpted facades.
Ardón has been a professor of Spanish as a second language and Latin American literature for more than 20 years in Mexico and the United States. She has taught students studying in the Ƶ in Mexico program at the Interamerican University Studies Institute in Querétaro.
She has also written biographies of Mexican entrepreneurs Roberto Ruiz and Fernando Barba, a children’s book, “La pandilla de Miguel,” a novel, “Historias íntimas de la casa de Don Eulogio,” and the short-story compilation “El arzobispo de gorro azul.” One of her stories “It is Nothing of Mine,” translated by C.M. Mayo, was selected to appear in the anthology “Mexico: A Traveler’s Literary Companion,” published last year by Whereabouts Press.
The lecture will include a slide presentation with photographs of the missions taken by Ardón and Professors Laura Montgomery and Mary Docter.