#17: Mission San Fernando Rey de España (Mission Hills)

October 25, 2021

The birthplace of the San Fernando Valley. A place of light and darkness.

  • Mission entrance, complete with anti-abortion sign
    Mission entrance, complete with anti-abortion sign
  • One of the many Mission San Fernando plaques
  • Reredos at the Mission San Fernando Rey de España
    Reredos at the Mission San Fernando Rey de España
  • Memorial to the 2425 indigenous neophytes interred here
  • Constructivist art commemorating Pope John Paul II's visit to the Mission in 1987
    Constructivist art commemorating Pope John Paul II’s visit to the Mission in 1987
  • Descriptive sign outside the only original building left at the Mission
    Descriptive sign outside the only original building left at the Mission
  • Seal honoring Gen. Andres Pico, leader of the Mexican forces during the Mexican-American War
    Seal honoring Gen. Andres Pico, leader of the Mexican forces during the Mexican-American War
  • Seal honoring John C. Fremont, leader of the American forces during the Mexican-American War
    Seal honoring John C. Fremont, leader of the American forces during the Mexican-American War
  • Camino El Real bell
  • Exploring Brand Park, south of the Mission
    Exploring Brand Park, south of the Mission
  • Junipero Serra statue
    Junipero Serra statue at the San Fernando Mission. He was dead before it was founded, but his imprimatur is all over it.

Added to the National Register of Historic Places on October 27, 1988

My 17th LA historical site, Mission San Fernando Rey de España, is coincidentally the 17th mission established in Alta California by Franciscan monks from Spain.

Built in 1797, this is the oldest site I’ve visited so far. Since San Fernando was the first town in the Valley, this mission really represents the birth of the massive swath of LA where I spent high school and now reside.

This mission is an oasis of peace and serenity, the kind of place I would visit for quiet contemplation even as a Jew. We arrived just as Sunday mass was ending, and the pastor’s amplified voice echoed out over a lovely central quadrangle as nuns strolled by. Walls of trees and foliage outline the Mission’s boundaries; it feels like you’re inside a forest clearing.

The buildings balance the austerity of the typical mission style with the extravagance you’d expect when there’s church money behind it. Mosaics, sculptures and paintings adorn the walls, and the church features an insanely ornate “reredos” and altar, dating from 1680s Spain.

I can get behind all of this. And yet lurking under the surface is the knowledge that the entire mission enterprise was only possible because of the mandatory conversions and brutal labor of generations of local tribes; Mission San Fernando “employed” thousands of Tongva and Chumash at any given time.

To its credit, the Catholic church has put some effort into ensuring that visitors understand that part of the Mission’s legacy. The “convento” (the only original structure left) houses a museum with exhibits documenting the difficult daily lives of the Natives who lived here. There is a marker in the cemetery behind the Mission, placed in the 1990s in remembrance of the 2425 Native Americans who were interred there over a 55 year period, in unmarked graves.

If there’s a takeaway for me, it’s a reminder that you can appreciate the profound beauty of a place like this, and also feel queasy about what you know about it. For me, those two feelings are compatible, and in fact the deeper I get into this project, the more I am drawn to that tension.

Recommended Reading

+Mission San Fernando Rey de España @ NRHP website

+The basics about the Mission San Fernando @ MissionsCalifornia.com

MissionsReligion
Etan R.
  • Etan R.

  • Music omnivore, student of LA history, beer snob and amateur father. Working my way through the canon.