Telling Stories of Mexican California: Real Life & Myth Making is new library exhibit
Beginning Sunday, February 2, visit the Belle Haven Library (100 Terminal Avenue) to view a new special exhibit, Telling Stories of Mexican California: Real Life & Myth Making.
Though it lasted less than three decades, California’s Mexican period (1822–1846) helped shape the distribution of land, wealth, and power after California officially entered the union in 1850.
Telling Stories of Mexican California reflects on this past, and how romanticized retellings made lasting impacts on the state’s culture and popular understandings of its history.
The exhibit broadly outlines California’s history leading up to statehood as a backdrop to the factual and fictional stories that emerged after the US takeover. It considers nineteenth-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.
The exhibit is developed by the California Historical Society, drawing extensively from their collections and consisting of 11 freestanding pop-up banners.
It is is on view during library hours through March 30: Thursday through Sunday from 10:00 am to 6:00 pm and Monday through Wednesday from Noon to 8:00 pm.
There are special programs related to the exhibition:
- Monday, Feb. 10: Food Stories of Early California
- Tuesday, Feb. 25: California in Transition (19th Century Edition)
- Wednesday, March 12: On the Move: Behind the Scenes of Traveling Exhibits
These free programs received funding support from the Friends of the Menlo Park Library.
Photo supplied by Menlo Park Library.
