Lindsay Gonzalez '09
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Sacred Art of SpainOf the rewards resulting from the opportunities Lafayette offers and challenges its students to take, I cannot imagine a greater gift than the knowledge and experience I have gained from the Rothkopf Scholarship trip to Spain.
My list of favorites from the trip would exhaust you. In fact, when writing highlights of my experience upon arriving home, I found myself recalling the trip in chronological order, piece by piece, leaving nothing out. One aspect of the experience does, however, stand above all the others: learning about my family’s history.
My grandparents met while they were young in New York. It was not until a few years after my grandfather’s parents died that they were able to visit Spain together. They discovered books in a Catholic church confirming a theory that my grandfather’s family had converted from Judaism to Catholicism centuries before, when Spanish rulers first began forcing non-Catholics to either convert, leave, or die.
Going to Spain and learning the history of how my family got its name was perhaps the most important event in my grandparents’ lives, and is now an unforgettable and invaluable tradition. I am thankful to Lafayette and the Rothkopf family for showing me so much of Spain and so much of myself.
— Lindsay Gonzalez
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Lindsay Gonzalez studied Jewish, Muslim, and Christian art and architecture in the museums, places of worship, and palaces of Spain as a Lafayette Rothkopf Scholar.
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