The new culture and religion that my mother had come into definitely played into the culture shock that she experienced in her earlier years of living in the United States. But as she continued her life in the States, she began to live her life the way other immigrants have and by the creeds and codes of other Latino Catholics. The willingness to pursue her American Dream in the United States, allowed the acculturation of my mother's beliefs and practices to prove as an example for the interplay between immigration and Roman Catholicism and how Latinos and Latinas have come to dominate the Roman Catholic religion through their population.
Roman
Catholicism dates back to when the first Catholics set foot in the
United States back when Christopher Columbus brought the first Jewish
“New Christians” to the Caribbean and sailed under the flag of
Catholic Spain. [1] The first waves of immigrants, the Spanish,
French and English, had established the religious institution. “For
the Catholic immigrants, space and time were equally consecrated;”
[2] Catholicism emphasized the importance of the sacraments and
penance. As time went on and other immigrants started pouring into
the United States, there were revolutionary movements going on within
the religion that began to change how Roman Catholicism worked. Then
in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century, the Latino
immigrants were influenced by the European-American spiritism and
Afro-Caribbean religions, while the Mexican-American people were
pulled more toward curanderismo, “the combination of
Catholicism, spiritism, and herbalism in the healing work.” [3]
My
mother has taken part in most, if not all, practices of Catholicism.
Traditionally, she was baptized as a newborn, celebrates Christmas,
and participates in Ash Wednesday. But most importantly, the
sacraments are a major part of her life which is also true for the
rest of the Roman Catholic community. The centrality of the
sacraments had always been an established part of the Roman Catholic
culture, however when it comes to the curanderismo of the
Mexican-Americans, my mother has also taken part in that as well. My
mother believes that herbs will fix physical illnesses and that
mental illnesses are just an out of balance state of mind. In an
article by Renaldo Maduro titled “Curanderismo and Latino
Views of Disease and Curing” he claims that “Curanderismo
is based on a set of values, underlying beliefs and premises – that
is a relatively fixed but implicit, often unconscious, notions of
disease causation and cure.” [4] Though my mom does not explicitly
describe her curanderismo tendencies, she takes part in it
every time she uses herbs to cure her sickness and every time she
discredits the existence of mental illnesses.
This illustrates the postpluralism that has occurred within the
United States and because of the Hispanic community.
The
Virgin
of Guadalupe had become another
important religious figure among Catholics, some would call her a
“goddess.” [5] Jane Caputi reflects that “her
significance to Mexicans, Mexican Americans and others; the
subversive powers of her iconography, particularly her special
relationships with the indigenous, with women, and with the poor; her
sexuality; her relationship to divine and folk figures from other
traditions; and her mystery,” but this Goddess can also be found in
many other cultures. [6 When my mom goes to church, she tells us to
pray not only to God but also to La
Virgen because
she has become a prominent figure within the Hispanic community. A
postpluralistic aspect of the culture that began to flourish during
the years of immigrant reform, the Virgin of Guadalupe can be
introduced as another historical trend that has made its way to my
mother's life.
My
mother's religious history reflects the general outline of Roman
Catholicism in the United States when we focus in on the
Mexican-American population. However, looking at the bigger picture
of Catholicism we can also see that postpluralism has transformed the
religion by adding curanderismo and the Virgin of Guadalupe. The
combination of religions that have been made in the past has made the
religion that my mother follows, be how it is today.
1Catherine
Albanese, ed., America: Religions and Religion (Wadsworth: Cengage
Learning, 2013).
2Albanese,
64.
3Albanese,
75.
4Renaldo
Maduro, “Curanderismo
and
Latino Views of Disease and Curing,” National Center for
Biotechnology Information, Internet, available from
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1011018/?page=2,
accessed 24 August 2013.
5Jane
Caputi, “Goddess
of the Americas/La Diosa de las Americas: Writings on the Virgin of
Guadalupe,”
Atla Religion Database, Internet, available from
http://web.ebscohost.com.proxy.library.ucsb.edu:2048/ehost/detail?sid=73750868-827f-41cd-ab20-29762117c4bf%40sessionmgr12&vid=10&hid=25&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=reh&AN=ATLA0000326468,
accessed on 24 August 2013.
6Caputi,
“ Goddess
of the Americas/La Diosa de las Americas: Writings on the Virgin of
Guadalupe.”
It is intriguing your mother believes that herbs will fix physical illness and mental illness is simply a state of mind. Have you thought of her ideals paralleling Christian Science where one can heal oneself? If mental illness was a state of mind then this would sure be the case. The Virgin Guadalupe is also a figure I am unaware of in the Catholic Religion. What particular significance does she hold for Latino Catholics? Is she a symbol in the bible or a symbol simply for the latino community in general?
ReplyDeleteMy mother does not always fix physical illness, only occasionally. You bring up a good point about the paralleling Christian Science, but since Christian Science emphasizes the idea that matter is not important my mother's beliefs are different than that.
DeleteThe Virgin Guadalupe to my family would be considered as important as Jesus and also to the rest of the Latino Catholic community. We have these prayers that we learn during confirmation (sacrament) where we pay tribute to the Virgin Guadalupe.
Curanderismo is something that is extremely treasured in the lives of my older aunts and grandma. Its exciting to see the amount of research that you did on this topic because prior to your blog post I didn't have a single clue what exactly Curanderismo was or where it originated from. I can recall all the different herb remedies that I was given when I was kid and with the help of your research I can finally understand the ideology and purpose of what I consumed as boy.
ReplyDelete