Review by Booklist Review
One merely has to look at the place names in modern California to confirm the enduring legacy of the Spanish colonization of the area. To a great extent, the initial success of that effort to civilize California was due to the labors in the eighteenth century of the Franciscan priest Junipero Serra. Driven by intense religious devotion and a restless, adventurous spirit, Serra abandoned a promising and secure teaching position in Spain in 1749 to sail to the New World. After 15 years as an administrator and preacher in Mexico City, he began the work of founding a series of missions in Alta (upper) California. Here Orfalea reveals the sheer toughness, courage, and even fanaticism of his subject, as Serra founds a series of missions, often traveling in solitude while plagued by a severely ulcerated leg. As Orfalea acknowledges, the results for the Indians who were attached to the missions were mixed and certainly did not prevent the demographic collapse of the Indian population. Still, this admiring and admirable biography pays tribute to an essential figure in the early development of California.--Freeman, Jay Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
In this vivid account of the life of Junipero Serra, Orfalea (Arab Americans: A Quest for Their History and Culture) offers not only a biography of the Spanish priest who fearlessly traveled the New World in the name of God, but an early history of California and its cultural origins. In 1749 under the guise of the Catholic Church, Serra left Spain to pursue missionary work in the New World. Yet upon his arrival Serra did more than erect churches and convert Native Americans, he cultivated multiple societies, many of which are now major cities in California: San Diego, Santa Barbara, San Juan Capistrano, and San Francisco. By focusing on one man's journey, Orfalea adds to the narrative with specifics-including actual confessions from believers and other insight gleaned from primary sources-without glazing over or sugar-coating the reality of what Spain's invasion in the New World meant for the natives who already resided there. California may be one of America's most youthful states but it does not lack the history one might assume, it only needs to be seen through the eyes of the right man. (Jan.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Review by Library Journal Review
To coincide with the 300th anniversary of Junipero Serra's birth, California native Orfalea (director, Ctr. for Writing, Pitzer Coll.; The Man Who Guarded the Bomb: Stories) turns his attention to Serra (1713-84) and the Spanish settlement of California. While Steven W. Hackel's recent Junipero Serra: California's Founding Father could be described as about "becoming Father Serra," with a significant portion on the Spanish friar before he ventured to Alta California, Orfalea focuses on the Franciscan's subsequent life in California and his work there establishing Catholic missions that sought to guide Catholic settlers in the region as well as to convert Native Americans. Orfalea sets this coverage up with an excellent chapter about precontact California, the various Indian groups then extant, and their beliefs and cultures. While he notes the large decline in California Indian populations, he also writes that "studies done as late as 1980...have shown the vast majority of the California Indians are still Catholic." Orfalea's final chapter considers the question of Serra's canonization. Verdict Hackel's and this Catholic-centered biography are complementary, together offering a fuller treatment of Serra's life. Hackel provides a more objective, evenhanded narrative. Those especially interested in California or New World history and biography from a Catholic perspective may find Orfalea's work a worthy choice.-Crystal Goldman, San JosE State Univ. Lib., CA (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A California story becomes an American story: the prolix, passionate resurrection of the largely forgotten Spanish Franciscan priest who founded the early missions along the California coast. With the Spanish church's incursions into the Baja peninsula and what is now California in the mid-18th century, the game was over for the Native Americans who inhabited the region. The Spanish, while ostensibly bringing the civilizing word as they moved in, and more lenient masters than the English, French or Americans, nonetheless wrought the fatal three-pronged scourge of "guns, germs and steel." Arab-American writer Orfalea (Creative Nonfiction/Pitzer Coll.; The Man Who Guarded the Bomb: Stories, 2010, etc.) believes the work of native Mallorcan priest Junpero Serra (17131784) deserves a reappraisal. During the half century of Spanish rule in California, when Serra set out to start a series of missions from San Diego to San Buenaventura, the Indians were more "incorporated rather than eliminated." According to this sympathetic portrait of the well-meaning though flawed priest, Serra had certainly learned from the past mistakes of Old World missionaries like the Jesuits. Spain was worried about Russian imperial infiltration into the New World, as well as the threat of uprisings among Indians, and Serra and his missionary forces were ordered to move northward. He seemed genuinely to have believed the naked savages he encountered in Baja in 1769 were "before sin," a people of equal status with the Spanish. Orfalea sifts carefully through the record of pre-contact versus post-contact--e.g., after early initial success in founding several missions, Serra had to contend with violence by the accompanying Spanish soldiers, and he encouraged intermarriage between the Spaniards and Indians as a way to mitigate tension. A doggedly researched and fulsomely argued biography.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
