Philomene Long The California Mission Poems (Spanish Trans.: Mariano Zaro), Published in conjunction with the film, The California Missions, Narrated by Martin Sheen, Distributed by the Univeristy of California Extension Media Center, 2223 Fulton St., Berkeley, CA, 94720, 1991, 42 pp.
pp. i, ii Translator's Notes (Translated into English)
"You always miss something when you are translating. You are like a killer, a murderer. When you translate the poems you are killing the poem. So when the poem is dead, you translate the dead body. But it is the way. In this case, it is very appropriate because this is "un libro de muetos," a book of the dead."
p. 2 Philomene Long
The intention of the Padres was to bring new life to the native Indians, then to return to them the cultivated mission land. In the end, the Indians' culture was erased, the Indians themselves were destoyed by disease, and their land was confiscated by settlers and politicians. Little remains of the heroic efforts of both Padre and Indian but the mission buildings themselves, and a reverent memory of what has been called "a noble failure."