Category Archives: Religion and Spirituality

A Quince for My Boys: Celebrating 15 Latina Style

photo of two boys in formal dress facing audience at banquet

The Mighty Ones. Photo by John Landry, Take5ive Photography. CC BY-NC-ND.

By Sonia BasSheva Mañjon

Growing up Latina and Catholic in a large Dominican family, in Compton, California, meant, for me, that ritual was a daily occurrence and a requirement. Attending mass on Sundays and Holy Days, Baptism, Confirmation, First Holy Communion, Quinceañera, and ultimately my Wedding, were all monumental occasions. My abuela would make the extravagant white dress, the extended family gathered for mass at the church, my abuelo would dig the hole in the backyard for the lechón asado that would accompany the feast prepared by the women at my grandparents house. And finally the pachanga complete with dancing merengue with my abuela to make sure I was authentic Dominicana. I always felt my grandmother and mother went overboard with these celebrations. At times it was embarrassing because my African American friends did not share any of these particular ritual celebrations, and often did not understand what was going on and why it was so important. But deep down inside, I expected and appreciated the “Queen for a Day” celebrations. Continue reading

Mujerista in Spirit: On Being a Latina Lapsed Catholic Researching Faith during Lent

author celebrating first communion

Sujey Vega’s First Communion Celebration. Personal files of author. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

by Sujey Vega

It is Lent and so it is that time of year when my mother pleads, “Hija, go to church this Sunday.”  For years I have tried to make my mother understand that I no longer “go to church” by choice. My repeated efforts to attend Catholic mass as an adult have yielded only unease, a sense of acting out of unfathomable obligation. What I dare not tell her, however, is how much I actually miss it. How much I wish I could believe and truly engage the Holy Spirit that she, following in the steps of my querida abuelita, so wholeheartedly embraced. Like many families from Latin America, it was the women who carried on the lived religion in my family. I remember my abuelita’s wrinkled hands moving her rose petal rosary, her thumbnail rhythmically gliding the beads that after years of use still emitted the smell of roses. Indeed, the aroma of fresh flowers continues to remind me of my own days of “ofreciendo flores” or offering flowers to the Virgin. Growing up, we attended mass every Sunday. My amá had me in catechism, I was an altar girl and took confirmation classes, even though I was confirmed in Mexico at the tender age of two (because as a Mexican Catholic I had no choice).

As a young adult, I could not personally reconcile the directives of a parish priest who barred teen girls from wearing make-up to mass or the passive reception expected of religious women toward their ministerial leader, a male priest. My mother, my abuelita, the women of the faith were the ones solely responsible for maintaining the faith at home, and yet they were hardly ever recognized by the institutional church for their commitment. Moreover, the presence of the Holy Spirit was never felt in the pews listening to yet another lecture from the pulpit. I felt spiritual presence in warm embraces, Sunday carne asadas, and the sounds of familiar alabanzas (hymns) and none of these things were ever talked about during mass. I realized now that what I was feeling was what Mujerista Theology noted as lo cotidiano, or the every day lived religion. Even though I left the organized Church, I still find light and warmth in the way people gain spiritual comfort, healing, and belonging from their faith.

Much to my mother’s surprise, I study religion and its social impact on Latino immigrant communities. Much to my own surprise, I voluntarily chose this path. I can recall the first time I felt called to voluntarily step into a church for research purposes. In 2003, Chicago was the site of national tour of the Tilma de Tepeyac religious relic, a 17th century statue of the Virgin of Guadalupe carrying a glass-encased piece of the tilma. At Our Lady of Tepeyac Parish in the Little Village neighborhood Mexican Catholics knelt down at the pews to pray for hours. As I observed their prayer I could not help but feel moved. Moved not by the presence of the relic, but the power of faith. Watching old and young, male and female pray brought me to tears. I sat there wishing I could be the Catholic my own mother wished I was.

Not long after this moment in Chicago I realized that my being agnostic does not deter from my interests in faith and Latin@ communities. I may not necessarily agree with the tenets of most organized religion, but I can appreciate the value that lived religion has on strengthening people’s lives. For the populations I study, faith provides material and emotional stability in an otherwise unstable world. This might seem crass or reductionists, but for me (a non believer) it helps to situate how religious faith serves a purpose in people’s lives. In this way, I could study faith and its role in religious communities without necessarily getting into the politics of accuracy or ranking religious beliefs.

This finessing of skepticism with appreciation has been more than valuable in my current research project on Latino Mormons. This research began in 2006 when I met Veronica, the wife of a Mormon President in a store-front rama, or Mormon branch. Here close to a dozen families gathered every Sunday to testify to their faith as Latter Day Saints. I had never met a Latino LDS member, and to be frank, did not even know such a community existed. Latino Protestants of all sorts (Baptists, Jehovah’s, and Seventh-day Adventists) were in my periphery, but Latino Mormons were completely out of my realm of possibility. Veronica invited me to her home where we bonded over her delicious pozole.  Veronica recalled the story of her crossing into the United States with her children, “fue una aventura terrible pero para ellos yo se les hice ver divertido – como que todo estaba bien… Gracias a Dios estamos aqui, que si pasamos por todo fue porque El lo quiso asi que valoremos mas las cosas, lo que tenemos, nuestro hogar, la familia” [It was a terrible adventure, but for them [her children] I made it seem entertaining, like everything would be ok. Thank God we are here, what we went through was all because He wanted us to value things, value what we have, our home, and our family].  It was women like Veronica who solidified my own interests in faith and religion as a coping mechanism for Latino immigrants. Veronica courageously faced the crossing with her children. Terrified herself, she referenced the crossing as “una aventura” an adventure to compartmentalize the fear and transform it into excitement for her children. Since then, I have continued to address the role of faith and family in Latino Mormons. Currently I am sifting through archives, conducting oral histories, and attending church events/services to understand more fully how specifically the Church of Latter Day Saints is inclusive of its Latino converts, and how Latinos have, for almost a century now, found their own spiritual belonging as Mormons.

The researcher in me wants to probe the Mormon Church’s problematic vision of a “light-skinned” God speaking to and saving indigenous communities in the Americas. I want to remain aware that the Church can be welcoming to some while extremely inhospitable to queer and gender non-conforming members. I want to point to the juxtaposition of families encouraged to grow and produce the next generation of Mormons while Latina females continuously get labeled as over-reproductive burdens on society.  I want to, and I will, but I also have to be true to the members who do feel satisfaction, who are tremendously strengthened by their faith, who remake an otherwise predominately Anglo Church in their own image. Members like Josefina who noted, “In December I turn 89 years old…and the Relief Society still fortifies me, it gives me strength so that if I have live more months, well it helps me. The Relief Society is always helping you and renews you.” These women are claiming their own way to belong, and draw strength from their Church and the Relief Society. They are moved by el espiritu, and I cannot deny them that. I cannot forget how much I was moved during the a holiday performance when I did feel something, when I almost heard my own abuelita sing “os pido posada…”. I can’t help remember the other women of the Spanish Tabernacle choir whose arms wrapped me in an embrace when they found out I wanted to do a book about their lives. The women who all surrounded me trying to take pictures and encourage my work. The 92 year old elderly woman whose wrinkled hands held onto my own and asked me “estas en el facebook” so she could keep up with my work. Every woman wanted to take a picture, tell me their conversion story, and encourage their daughters to talk to me. I can’t but account for their narratives as well. As a feminist, non-Mormon, Women and Gender Studies professor, I’ve faced questions and skepticism about my research from the Mormon women I am researching. I want to remain open to their voices rather than rush to condemnation. Perhaps what I am actually doing, what drives this work, is the search to connect to my amá and abuelita, to their faith and their willingness to assert their own roles as Mujeristas, or women who lived their faith fully in their every day. So this Easter Lenten season I will go to church, but much to my mother’s chagrin it will be for research and not spiritual reasons.

References

Isasi-Díaz, Ada María. Mujerista Theology: A Theology for the Twenty-First Century. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1996.

Sujey Vega is on the faculty at Arizona State University and a member of the Mujeres Talk Editorial Group.

La Cholita de Guadalupe

Image of Virgin of Guadalupe as young contemporary woman in neighborhood.

La Cholita de Guadalupe. By Lizeth Gutierrez, Maria Saucedo, Silvia Garcia, Kayla Potts. Used with permission of the authors. Reuse of this image without the express permission of the authors is prohibited. All rights reserved (CC license does not apply to this image).

by Lizeth Gutierrez, Maria Saucedo, Silvia Garcia, Kayla Potts

When my colleagues and I were thinking about powerful images that represented today’s young Chicana we were very inspired by both Alma López [1] and Yolanda M. López’s [2] work with La Virgen de Guadalupe. Both artists redefined Chicana sexuality in powerful ways by reframing La Virgen; a significant cultural and religious iconography in the Chicana/o community, as a woman who is interpreted and experienced in various ways. Along with them we were also drawn to Sandra Cisneros’ essay “Guadalupe the Sex Goddess.” [3]  In her writing, Cisneros offers us a revolutionary understanding of our own sexual power as women. Through their work we were encouraged to think critically about our own unique relationship with La Virgen de Guadalupe.

Our individual relationships with La Virgen inspired this collective project because we realized we had a lot more similarities than differences in how we relate to her and each other. For instance, Lizeth is not very religious, but La Virgen holds symbolic value to how she has come to understand her femininity as a site of empowerment. She had to distance herself from her mother and grandmother’s conceptions of a “good” woman to make sense of her own sexuality. Similarly, Silvia and Maria grew up viewing La Virgen as a symbol of appropriate women behavior. Women are supposed to be docile and pure, especially in the eyes of Catholicism and Mexican culture. Both Maria and Silvia, however, have reclaimed La Virgen by challenging the typical portrayals of womanhood as submissive and passive. They embraced her as a strong figure that is not afraid to claim public space and speak her mind. Kayla sees La Virgen as a symbol of female empowerment because women’s bodies are sacred and sexual. We refuse to have vergüenza of our bodies, our sexualities, and our womanhood; we are beautiful women inside and out.

This project brings together two significant images of womanhood in our community; La Virgen de Guadalupe and the chola. Cholas are often perceived as a threat in our communities because of their political gender performances that re-signify sexuality. In bringing these two symbols of womanhood together we wanted to name ourselves within our communities. We wanted to contest the boundaries of femininity that are imposed on us each and every day. Women have been relegated to the domestic sphere in order to ensure that their role as mothers and wives in patriarchal culture function to affirm narratives of hyper-masculinity and heteronormative values of the heterosexual family. “The Cholita de Guadalupe” is our sitio that has allowed us to create a lengua that speaks about Chicana womanhood in empowering ways.[4] Her attitude of toughness is a fundamental mechanism of survival. Our survival. And it is through our toughness that we reclaim our femininity, our relationship with La Virgen, and our survival in academia.

While many may be curious as to why we have decided to use specific symbols in our work, we believe it is more powerful to leave our art open to interpretation. We do not feel it is necessary to unpack all the elements of the image because every symbol can mean different things for different people. The beauty of art is that it can speak to people in various ways, and it is precisely that ambiguity that we believe allows for a more inclusive conversation about religious identity, womanhood, and sexuality.

Some background information about this project: We worked on a beautiful painting together as part of our final group project for our Comparative Ethnic Studies course: “La Chicana in U.S. Society.” We wanted to draw attention to the ways family, religion (Marianismo), gender performances, and machismo (to name a few), shape and discipline constructions of womanhood in Chicana/o culture.[5] Our image reclaims the Virgin Mary as a chola; she is our “La Cholita de Guadalupe.” Inspired by a number of Chicana scholars and Chicana artists, we wanted to explore political identity from a Chicana feminist perspective in order to complicate the ways culture, religion, patriarchy, and the heteronormative Mexican family influence Chicana sexuality, as both a site of systematic oppression and a political space of discovery and resistance. Our work aims to incite a critical discussion on sexuality as both a political site and a politicized choice, especially for first generation Chicanas in higher education. The materials used were tempura paint, fabric paint, and bandana fabric. We, who worked really hard on this project, are all Chicanas, and are committed to our communities, especially on our campus.

References

[1] Alma Lopez, “Our Lady,” 1999 (Special thanks to Raquel Salinas & Raquel Gutierrez).
[2] Yolanda Lopez, Portrait of the Artist as the Virgen of Guadalupe, 1978.
[3] Sandra Cisneros, “Guadalupe the Sex Goddess,” 1996.
[4] Emma Pérez, “Sexuality and Discourse: Notes From a Chicana Survivor,” 1991.
[5] Cherrie Moraga, “From a Long Line of Vendidas: Chicanas and Feminism,” 1983.

Lizeth Gutierrez is a Ph.D. student in the American Studies program at Washington State University. She researches representations in popular culture of gendered and raced Latinidades and is particularly interested in the commercialization of mainstream Latinidad in relation to U.S. discourses on second-class citizenship.

Silvia Garcia is a senior at Washington State University and is currently majoring in general studies, but hopes to finish her mechanical engineering degree.

Maria Saucedo is a spring 2014 graduate from Washington State University. She completed her Bachelors of Arts in Comparative Ethnic Studies and was the Chair/Coalition for Women Students at the Women’s Resource Center.

Kayla Potts is a junior at Washington State University and is majoring in Women Studies with a minor in Psychology. 

12/12/12: This Time Is Our Time

December 12, 2012

DSCN0026By Inés Hernández-Ávila

Compañeras, hermanas, hijas, nietas, abuelas, madres, madres, madres, todos somos madres, de una manera u otra, porque todas tenemos la profunda capacidad de crear:

Hoy es un dia muy importante, today is an important day, 12/12/12, there will not be another one in our lifetimes, we must give ourselves a moment in our lives to stop our ordinary activity and feel, see, touch, taste, smell, be with the Earth, the Mother of Us All, y darle Grácias. This is the day that tells us that it is time to be the way we want to be, without reservation, unconditionally, to realize ourselves con firmeza, con coraje, con Amor, to remember who we are, as mujeres, as guerreras, as voces, as thinking hearts.[1] Today is a llamamiento to our very innermost beings to stand up and be counted on behalf of the Earth, on behalf of all of Life, on behalf of toda la naturaleza, todos los seres inocentes que comparten esta planeta con nosotras. De nosotras dependen, quién sino nosotras? Humans are not the only peoples on this Earth. Si va a ver Justicia, que sea para todos los seres que vivimos en la Tierra. Interestingly, the U.N. designated April 22 as International Mother Earth Day (I knew it was called Earth Day, I just learned it is officially Mother Earth Day). Día 12 is the Mexican Mother Earth Day. Perhaps not all peregrinos, devotos, would see it this way—for many of them, la Virgen de Guadalupe es, en términos estrictamente Católicos, la Madre de Diós, la Madre de Jesucristo, la interlocutora mas alta que hay para llegar a Diós. Mis respetos a todos ellos.

But for those of us who have been reflecting on her being, thinking about our (dis)connections to Catholicism, thinking about Chicana/indigenous spiritualities, envisioning “transnational feminist spiritual communities,”[2] coming to terms with the idea of Spirit in our lives, we know that La Virgen is much more than how she is defined by the Catholic Church. We know her differently. As our beloved Gloria Anzaldua said, “I’ve always been aware that there is a greater power than the conscious I.  That power is my inner self, the entity that is the sum total of all my reincarnations, the godwoman in me I call Antigua, mi Diosa, the divine within, Coatlicue-Cihuacoatl-Tlazolteotl-Tonantzin-Coatlalopeuh-Guadalupe—they are one.”[3] This is immense knowledge. La Virgen se manifiesta como imagen Católica, some say she was an invention of the missionization campaign, a tool of the imperial project, pero de todas maneras, we have triumphantly (re)indigenized her, claimed her as our own, and she has become an activist on behalf of the people, for so many who know her this way.  If she was an invention of missionization, the invention traicionó al proyecto colonial, because the foundational elements of her being are here, in this hemisphere, in the Land. She is the Land. She is the Earth. Punto.

Today is 12/12/12, but we should see the date as a marker of the momentum of transformation that is happening all around us.  The latter part of the month, some say 12/21/12, will mark the entrance, completed, of the next age, the New Sun. My colleague Victor Montjeo, Jakaltek Maya, from Guatemala, tells us that this is a time of world renewal, not world destruction. In the Conchero Dance tradition, I was told that we are moving from Nahui Ollin, 5 Movement, the age we have been in since before the invaders arrived, to the New Sun, Nahui Coatl, 5 Serpent, and that this New Sun will manifest more predominantly as female, and her symbol will be the Venado, the Deer. For at least two decades, the elders of this dance tradition have indicated that the New Sun has been arriving, coming in behind the present one, dancing. I remember dancing at the Basilica de la Virgen de Guadalupe in Mexico City, one December 12th, and suddenly as I was dancing, I felt the earth move beneath my feet, gently, almost unnoticeably, but it was certain, the Earth Mother was dancing with us, happy that we were dancing for her. She is so alive, she sings, she dances, she witnesses, she grieves, she disrupts, she balances, she suffers, she loves.

During this time (during all of our time on this earth in this life), we should walk, as the Yoeme say of saila maaso, the little brother deer, leaving flowers wherever we step.  Tenderly, gracefully, attentively, with abundant awareness of our surroundings, not only our academic or work surroundings, that, too, but our homes, our yards, our jardines (if we are lucky enough to have them), the spaces where we choose to spend time. Spend time, such a Western concept. Even time is cast in monetary, acquisitive terms. Spend time. Take time. Waste time. Don’t waste time. The spaces, circles, spheres where we love to be.

We know we are always in Nepantla (grácias a los antiguos Nahuas por este concepto). Somos Nepantleras (grácias a Gloria por la contemporización del concepto). As Nepantleras, in this time of great transformation, change, shape-shifting, we are ready for whatever comes our way. We must keep our senses, have our wits about us, trust our intuition, and constantly fine-tune it, remember humility, and know deeply that our Spirits are present, always. My Spirit guides me, my Spirit has the answers, my Spirit protects me. This I must remember. This we must remember. And my Spirit helps me see the signs of this new time that has come. Our spirits are ready. This time is our time.

Inés Hernández-Ávila is a Professor and Chair of the Department of Native American Studies at UC-Davis. She is a member of the Mujeres Talk Editorial Collective. 


[1] The term “thinking heart” is from Kathryn Shanley, Nakota scholar of Native American Studies.

[2] Theresa Delgadillo, Spiritual Mestizaje: Religion, Gender, Race, and Nation in Contemporary Chicana Narrative, p. 94.

[3] Gloria Anzaldúa, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza, p. 50.

Comment(s):
Carrie Castañeda-Sound    December 12, 2012 at 3:22 PM

With all the end-of-semester chaos, commercialism, and high expectations from family and friends, I found this blog very grounding. Thank you for that gift!