Metaphor and place: The U.S.-Mexico border as center and periphery in the interpretation of religion

Journal of the American Academy of Religion

Volumn 67, Issue 3, 1999, Pages 541-571

  León, Luis D ^a  

^a ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 61249437683     PISSN: 00027189     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/jaarel/67.3.541     Document Type: Review

References (16)

1. I use the terms "Chicano" and "Chicana" descriptively and broadly to refer to people of Mexican heritage who live most of their lives in the United States; these terms are used interchangeably with Mexican American. The term "Mexican Americas" is used broadly to indicate the places in America occupied by people of Mexican descent on both sides of the border, while "ethnic Mexicans" denotes both Mexicans and Mexican Americans. While there is no pure or perfect designation for Mexicans in America, I find the terms "Chicana" and "Chicano" most useful. "Latino" is used throughout to refer to all people of Latin American descent including Mexican Americans
2. These actions are not so much based on rational choices as much as they are based on what Pierre Bourdieu calls the "habitus," which is responsive and strategic action guided by cognitive and sense impression, or a "feel for the game." Through tactical maneuvers, religion is utilized in the quo-tidian struggle of "making do." A "tactic" is a victory of time over space, "a calculus which cannot count on a 'proper' [place] (a spatial or institutional localization), nor thus on a borderline distinguishing the other as a visible totality.... It must constantly manipulate events in order to turn them into 'opportunities'" (de Certeau:xix)
3. A full elaboration of these terms lies beyond the boundaries of this paper. For a rich discussion of the contrast between Mexican and American collective sentiments, see Richard Rodriguez, Days of Obligation: An Argument with My Mexican Father (New York: Penguin Books, 1998)
4. April 11, 1993, East Los Angeles. Interview conducted by author
5. I wish to thank Alberto Pulido for his help in this research on Juan Soldado
6. Patrick McDonnell, "I Believe in Juan Soldado: Soldier Executed in 1938 Revered as Tijuana Miracle Worker," Los Angeles Times, 5 November, 1998
7. See also James S. Griffith, "El Tiradito and Juan Soldado: Two Victim Intercessors of the Western Borderlands," in A Shared Space: Folklife in the Arizona-Sonora Borderlands (Logan, UT: Utah State University Press, 1995): 67-86
8. This prayer is printed on the devotional objects (candles, pictures, and the like) sold at Soldado's Shrine. The Spanish to English translation is my own
9. The note was dated "15-02-96," and the Spanish to English translation is my own
10. Epoca, 16 October 1995: 15-22
11. "Hispanic Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 1982-1984: Findings on Health Status and Health Care Needs," ed. by Fernando M. Trevino, Washington, DC: National Coalition of Hispanic Health and Human Services Organizations
12. Steven Lozano Applewhite, "Curanderismo," Health and Social Work 4 (November, 1995):247
13. The phrase "Healing across Borders" is borrowed with permission from Lara Medina's manuscript of the same title. See Lara Medina, "Healing across Borders: The Life of Teresa Urrea," privately circulated manuscript
14. Quoted in Macklin and Crumrine
15. Ramón Godines, in Epoca, 21 (my translation)
16. Quoted in Patrick J. McDonnell, "For Them Prop. 187 is Just the Beginning," The Los Angeles Times, January 28, 1995