The Santa Barbara Trust for Historic Preservation (SBTHP) invites the community to view Telling Stories of Mexican California: Real Life & Myth Making, a new exhibit at Casa de la Guerra that runs June 26-Aug. 31 at 15 E. De la Guerra St.
Though it lasted less than three decades, California’s Mexican period (1822-46) helped shape the distribution of land, wealth, and power after California officially entered the union in 1850, SBTHP said.
Telling Stories of Mexican California reflects on this past, and how romanticized re-tellings made lasting impacts on the state’s culture and popular understandings of its history.
“Telling Stories of Mexican California: Real Life & Myth Making broadly outlines California’s history leading up to statehood as a backdrop to the factual and fictional stories that emerged after the U.S. takeover,” SBTHP said.
“It considers 19th-century Mexican American individuals and families who told their stories and looks at some of the early narratives that helped create an enduring California mythos, as well as the stories that were ignored in favor of this new, often exaggerated or fictionalized lore,” SBTHP said.
“Some of the stories of individuals revealed in the exhibit may surprise people, including examples of the extraordinary agency of women during this period,” SBTHP said.
“This exhibit wonderfully demonstrates the manner in which many women in Mexican California shattered the boundaries of patriarchy and became active participants in social, political, and cultural life,” said exhibit curators Rose Marie Beebe, professor emerita of Spanish literature; and Robert Senkewicz, professor of history emeritus at Santa Clara University.
“The de la Guerra women of Santa Barbara were outstanding examples of this and set the stage for the extensive participation of American women as initiators of many public activities in US California,” they said.
“As seen through the creative eyes and brilliant minds of scholar curators Rose Marie Beebe and Robert Senkewicz, this exhibit invites viewers to participate in the two centuries of tug-of-war between myth and history as it pertains to Mexican California,” said William Deverell, divisional dean for the social sciences at the University of Southern California, who worked as an advisor on the exhibit said.
Admission is $5 for adults, $4 for seniors (62+), free for SBTHP members, SNAP/EBT and CalFresh cards, and children 16 and under. Includes admission to El Presidio de Santa Bárbara State Historic Park.
Telling Stories of Mexican California: Real Life & Myth Making was organized by the California Historical Society; features the CHS Collection at Stanford; and tours through Exhibit Envoy, www.exhibitenvoy.org.
Founded in 1963 by Pearl Chase, SBTHP stewards the past and present of the Presidio Neighborhood and inspires preservation advocacy throughout the county. SBTHP operates El Presidio de Santa Bárbara State Historic Park, Santa Barbara’s 18th century birthplace, under an agreement with California State Parks.
Learn more at sbthp.org.