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 Westmont’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 Westmont 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.