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»CA.HISTORY by david armstrong A Place for Starting Over California has always been a place for immigrants and entrepreneurs CALIFORNIA MISSIONS The string of missions that runs from San Diego to Sonoma is one of California's most enduring legacies. Father Junipero Serra's quest to spread Christianity to indigenous communities here became his life's work, and today the missions he founded are open to visitors interested in living history. Many remain active churches and all offer windows onto California's vibrant past. 10 2 013 travel guide to c al i fo r n ia THE GARDEN AND BELL TOWER of Carmel Mission, above, formally known as San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo, second of the California Missions where Father Junipero Serra is buried. The Spanish Franciscan friar blessing an adobe church at Mission Basilica San Diego Alcata in 1769; the Chilean miner trying his luck panning for gold in a cold Sierra cataract in 1849; the Chinese laborer crossing the heaving Pacific to work on the transcontinental railroad in 1869; the African American leaving the South to build warships on the Oakland waterfront in 1942; the Haight-Ashbury hippie with her wakeful dreaming in San Francisco's Summer of Love in 1967; the Indian engineer launching a hightech startup in Palo Alto in 2013, all have something in common: starting over. The United States is said to be a place where the world comes to begin again—to reinvent itself, in the current coinage. If so, California is the "America" of America. This was so even in prehistory, when the first migrants from Asia crossed the land bridge between Siberia and Alaska, hung a right, walked southward, found pastures of plenty, rich marine life and heart-stoppingly beautiful mountains and either decided to keep walking or stop right where they were. The place wasn't called California then, of course. That came later, the name taken from a 16th-century Spanish novel and used by explorers, soldiers and missionaries, who were themselves starting over in the New World. The Spanish built 21 Roman Catholic missions, from San Diego in the south to Sonoma in the north, from 1769 to 1823. In converting native communities to Christianity, the newcomers overwhelmed native cultures. Of necessity, the Native Americans started over in a bewildering new world. In 1821, Mexico, with its remote northernmost province, Alta California, wrenched itself free of the Spanish Empire. In 1833, the missions were secularized by the Mexican government and abandoned. Their buildings