Divided We Stand: Latina/o Students in White Institutions

This article was originally published on Shetheordinary, a blog created for those of us experiencing life in our diverse faith, culture, & identity.

“I don’t associate with that group of people,” he replied after I invited him to our El Puente club meeting, a student club designed for Latina/os enrolled in my Southern California alma mater. I was confused and offended. He shared that he was Mexican-American, had dark brown eyes, and brown hair with tan skin but resisted my invitation to meet other students like him. With a surprised face I looked at him and ended the conversation with a simple and quiet “ok.”

I could not verbalize my disbelief.

Here I was, a sophomore in college, attempting to connect with someone who looked like me but shared a completely different view of our cultural identity. I never experienced this before. Being born and raised in Los Angeles exposed me to a majority of Latina/os friends who identified with their parents’ culture. We grew up bilingual and well aware of our raices. There was no question in proclaiming ourselves as proud Brown children.

After my brief conversation with this young Latino, I was left sitting alone at the table in a college cafeteria. My coraje (anger) crept in. With him gone, my delayed reaction came in full force.

“Forget you!” I thought to myself, “You can’t even see your nopal en la frente, Pocho!”

In our small Christian college campus there were two sub-groups of Latina/o students. Those who proudly associated themselves as Brown and those who disassociated themselves from their Latina/o roots. My dad would call these people, ‘Pochos.’

As a Mexican-American, if you did not know or speak the Spanish language, and rarely identified with your cultural roots, you were called a ‘Pocho.’ This was an insult and a statement indicating that your latinidad has been revoked by your unworthiness to prove it. You were seen as a white-washed Latina/o, uncultured and assimilated.

My interaction with this young Latino was not the only one that angered me during my time as a student. Many other Latina/o classmates created a dichotomy of us versus them within our own Brown students on campus. This created a deeper scar on all of our cultural identities from wherever we stood on the spectrum of identifying with our heritage. I could not help but wonder why these young men and women were so ashamed of their identity - ashamed of the language of their ancestors? Eventually I wondered why they were even ashamed of associating with a person like myself, someone who fully identified with her latinidad.

In Brown Church: Five Centuries of Latina/o Social Justice, Theology, and Identity, author Robert Chao Romero quotes Laura Gomez on the following: “As Brown-somewhere between white and black-a select minority among us has always had the option to slip into whiteness and forget about the rest.”[1] I can’t help but think this is what happens with some of us struggling to identify with our cultural identity.

We slip into our whiteness when we choose to disown our Brown brothers and sisters. We repress who we are to be accepted and seen in the same value as our white counterparts. This comes at the cost of cutting our raices and cultural ties with one another as Brown people.

In her article, “El Español in the US: Memoria and Resistance”, Itzel Reyes shares a little more behind this decision to repress and assimilate. In her words, some of our parents “stopped teaching Spanish to our children as a protective strategy, as a survival mechanism disguised as choice. We sacrificed our descendants’ ability to speak with their own family in service of racist ideologies. We forcefully traded our ability to communicate with our familias in exchange for a little bit of acceptance from a system that does not recognize us as image-carriers.”

For some of us, our assimilation has been an act of survival passed down from generation after generation in order to survive in White America.

We repress, disassociate, and look at our proud Brown people with little to no connection. Yet, no matter how much some of us try to remove our ‘Brown’ attributes, language, and heritage, this will never make us immune to the discrimination and ignorance we face in this country because our society has been embedded with historically racist systems that still haunt us today.

I look back and cannot help but feel a nudge from the Holy Spirit to reconcile with this young Latino in the cafeteria. At the time, I disliked him for thinking he was better than me. Yet, my reaction to his comment placed me in the same path as him after calling him a Pocho (sorry God). He pushed proud and expressive Latina/os away from him and I only drew this line farther back. I thought I had the right to exclude him from our heritage, one that has been scrutinized and judged by a toxic racist ideology only learned and adopted. We traded our native tongue for a language of self-hate. In consequence of this complex disconnect, you see my example of losing respect for him thinking that latinidad was something I could measure and hold to a standard. I failed to understand the history of this country that stripped him, his family, and many others from being their authentic selves.

Institutions and systems built on racism will pin us against each other leading us to cut cultural ties from one another. We cannot give in to this division because in the end we are in the same fight to be seen and heard for who we are.

As God’s people, we must make room at the table even for those who are not there yet to fully embrace their latinidad and culture. We make room for those still struggling to fully embrace the beauty in the color of their skin, their different shades of brown, and the beautiful language(s) of our ancestors. As Latina/os, building community is a core value among us and assimilating and rejecting one another is not how we will move forward in this country. We will progress only by meeting each other where we are, through the full embrace and grace led by the God who draws us closer to one another.

From time and time again we will see those of us who are approaching the cafeteria table blindfolded with the red, white and blue bandanna of racism. They will come rejecting you and themselves, rooted out of a generational fear and burden passed down from long ago. Give grace and leave a seat open at the table for them. They are going to need a gentle uncovering in due time to see life in the light of Christ.

In the book of John chapter nine, Jesus heals the man born blind to show those who think they see that they are truly blind. Verse three of chapter nine states that neither did this man nor his parents sin for him to be born blind. Instead, this circumstance and moment is presented for the Messiah to display his work as the one who recovers sight to the blind.

In his healing power, Christ leads us to see one another for who we truly are. Through his grace and power, Jesus uncovers our eyes to see the goodness and beauty in our Brown face and with one another.

We no longer remain blind to one another and our God-given color, instead we see each other in the light of Christ with kindness and full acceptance. May we continue this restorative work and find healing, reconciliation and connection once again.

About Heidi Lepe

Heidi Lepe is a West Los Angeles Latina blogger and creator of Shetheordinary, an online platform for individuals experiencing life at the intersections of faith, culture and identity. As a daughter of Mexican/Honduran immigrant parents, she completed her dual Bachelor’s degree in Psychology and Sociology from Vanguard University in 2015 where her love for theology and culture began. She loves reading/writing, traveling, and eating a traditional Central American breakfast at any time of day. You can read more of her writings at www.shetheordinary.com and follow her upcoming projects on Instagram/Facebook @shetheordinary.

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Footnote

[1] Robert Chao Romero, Brown Church: Five Centuries of Latina/o Social Justice, Theology, and Identity, n.d.

“Don’t worry Mamaw, I’m Black”

“The racism which caused the relegation of the Negro to a status of inferiority was to be applied to the overseas possessions of the United States.””

— Rubin Francis Weston, Racism in U.S. Imperialism

“The objective of colonial discourse is to construe the colonized as a population of degenerate types on the basis of racial origin, in order to justify conquest and to establish systems of administration and instruction.””

— Homi Bhabha, “The Other Question”

Racial Schooling: Lesson One

Like W.E.B. Du Bois, I learned I was a racial problem during school. But unlike Du Bois, my teacher, not a classmate, taught me this lesson.

While frantically taking notes to ensure I succeeded in my first-ever honors class, my sixth-grade teacher Mrs. Noone rebuked me in front of the entire class for not paying attention. I remember her words:

“This is an honors class, Nathan, not a daycare center.”

“Yes ma’am, I know. But I was paying attention.”

“Enough! You do not belong in this class, Nathan. Do you understand? You are only here for racial diversity numbers.”

Mrs. Noone had racialized the entire class and found me wanting. I alone, as she would later tell my mom, did not have what it took to receive an honors education. I was Puerto Rican. I was inferior.

Racial Schooling: Lesson Two

For reasons I cannot discuss here, my dad never taught me Spanish. And this gift was something he alone could give, for unlike my Anglo Mom, my Dad speaks fluent Spanish with an Aguadillan accent.

My Dad’s omission haunted me throughout my childhood. It haunts me now. But it was during my childhood that other Latin@s most consistently distanced themselves from me: They refused to associate with self-identifying Latin@s who spoke Spanish as poorly as I did. As Augustine said, “difference of language is enough to inhibit society.”

To most of my Latin@ peers, I was adulterated Anglo trash, an assimilated mongrel—a mutt to be shunned.

I acutely felt my double-racialized rejection in the weeks after Mrs. Noone denounced me before my honors-English classmates. I had no racial home in the communal spaces Anglo and Iberian white supremacy forged. Whiteness, the racist reasoning goes, is pure. Those deemed non-White frequently counter by constructing and defending purist, essentialist logics to police their own communities. Blatant white supremacy begets whiteness of a different color.  

Policed by biological and linguistic racial border patrols, I felt damned to be people-less. And as Mrs. Noone and Latin@s daily abused me, I started confiding more and more in my African American friends. They listened. They acted mercifully. They knew something of diaspora life—of being foreign but in a domestic sense.

After several weeks of confiding in my friend Thomas, I decided to let it all out.

“Thomas, I don’t know what I am. The Puerto Ricans and other Latin@s don’t want me because my Spanish is shit. And the Whites know I’m not one of them the moment a teacher botches my last name. What the hell am I, man?!”

Thomas looked dumbfounded, but quickly replied.

“Damn Nate, it’s obvious—you’re Black. Everybody knows that Puerto Ricans are Black. What the hell you so worried for? You straight tripp’n, not knowing yo ass is Black.”

I thought long and hard about Thomas’s words and confidence. Could he be right? Was I Black? The suggestion seemed absurd.

But as I kept thinking, I realized Thomas had a point. The Puerto Ricans and African Americans in my schools and neighborhood always hung out. We wore similar clothes, liked the same English-speaking music, found the same people attractive, and received similar treatment from Whites. Indeed, Whites and non-Puerto Rican Latin@s had hurled the N-word at me countless times by this point in my life, with some Latin@s telling me that racist terms like “spic” were too good for me.

I decided to take a survey. I asked students across racialized lines if they thought I was Black because I was Puerto Rican. The overwhelming majority said yes. This sealed the deal. These people thought I was Black and usually treated me accordingly. It was time for me to live into my racial identity. It was time to belong.

Racial Schooling: Lesson Three

My embracing being Black caused enormous family strife. My Anglo mom did not understand it, and we repeatedly fought over my racial identity. Similarly, mi familia in Puerto Rico were flummoxed. For some, my embrace of being Black proved I was a fool. It showed I did not understand the truths imbedded in the “mejorar la raza” rhetoric.

Though this strife hurt, I pressed on. I was Black and no one was going to persuade me otherwise. My Blackness was too precious, too explanatory. I would not be people-less. Not again.

But returning to the State of my birth forced an unexpected racial reckoning.

During a hot, humid day in South Carolina, Mamaw and I decided to go on a walk and, as was our custom, got lost in conversation, meandering around her childhood town. Eventually the heat and humidity conspired and forced us to sit under a shade tree. Thirsty, Mamaw asked if I had water. I did not.

But ever desiring to problem solve, I told Mamaw not to worry: I saw a gas station down the road and was happy to go and buy us some water. Mamaw rejected my proposal.

“Honey, we cannot go down there,” she laughed.

“That’s a Black gas station.”

Here too I had a solution. For though I lacked water, I brought my Blackness with me.

“Don’t worry Mamaw—I’m Black! They’ll let me buy water there. No problem.”

Mamaw became serious; I’d never seen such concern in her eyes.

“Honey, who told you you’re Black?”

I knew my answer mattered, so I carefully choose my words.

“Mamaw, I’m Puerto Rican. And Puerto Ricans are Black. The people in the gas station know this, and they’ll let me shop with other Black people. That’s why I said I’d get the water. You stay here—since you’re not Black.”

Mamaw was livid.

“Who the hell told you—my grandson—that you’re Black?! I’ve never heard such stupidity my whole life. What a bunch of crock. Look here. I’m White; your Mom is White; and your Dad has light skin, light eyes, and speaks good English—he doesn’t even have an accent. And now you’re telling me that you’re Black?! I don’t know what they’re teaching you up North, but down here we know that you ain’t Black. And I’m not gonna let my Grandbaby get beat to a pulp because he’s some dumb delusion about being Black. We’re heading home, ya hear?!”

To her childhood home we went, in silence—a silence forged by what Frantz Fanon calls an “epidermal racial schema.” Jim and Jane Crow had rendered Mamaw incapable of entering into my racial experiences and racial pain. Her socialization trained her to carry the white man’s burden, not a racialized Black blanquito’s. Besides, she had already fended off acquisitions that she sinfully let her daughter marry a Black man. No Northern racial schemes could dislodge her certainty about her family’s whiteness.

Racial Schooling: Lesson Four

Mrs. Noone’s denouncement injected me with internalized racism that still courses through my body. So did my language-based rejection by Latin@s. Mi esposa can testify to the racial trauma that my body exudes when I publicly speak Spanish. Every utterance is an act of resistance that presses on racial scabs and renders me vulnerable to new racial wounds.

Mamaw’s rejection of my Blackness forced me to confront race’s fluidity. In the process, I learned from Rachel F. Moran that Puerto Ricans are the Latin@ group in the US “most apt to identify themselves as Black.” And as they do, Douglas Massey and Nancy Denton report, they experience higher degrees of segregation from Whites—even White Presidents. Recall President Richard Nixon’s infamous campaign ad rehearsal in 1968. Having noted the need for school discipline—“Discipline in the classroom is essential if our children are to learn”—he goes off script, apparently speaking to himself: “Yep, this hits it right on the nose, the thing about this whole teacher—it’s all about law order and the damn Negro-Puerto Rican groups out there.” The Negroes and Puerto Rican’s are one racialized menace, a collective whose groupings lawlessly occupy classrooms and street corners.

Mrs. Noone, my Latin@ peers, and Mamaw—each identified me as a racial menace, a problem. And each resorted to disciplinary measures steeped in white supremacy to set me straight. None of their actions promoted intimacy or belonging. They never could; racial reductions ultimately prove impotent.

This impotence testifies to the need for race-conscious formation that acknowledges the fluidity and complexity of racialization and the traumas it produces. Without such formation, teachers, families, and racialized communities will be ill equipped to commune with the multi-racialized among them.

About Nathan Luis Cartagena, PhD

Dr. Nathan Luis Cartagena is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Wheaton College (IL), where he teaches courses on race, justice, and political philosophy. Cartagena also serves as the faculty advisor for Unidad Cristiana, a student group working to enhance Christian unity and celebrate Latina/o cultures, and is writing a book about critical race theory. You can read his writings at nathancartagena.com, and follow him on Twitter @MeditarMestizo.

El Español in the US: Memoria and Resistance

Me inculcaste el odio hacia mi idioma. El español lo rechazaste, como peste lo valoraste. El inglés lo alabaste, como lengua suprema lo elevaste. I don’t need Spanish, I told my mother and it pierced her heart. I’m American, le repetí, American, le grité. Mr. Smith’s words echoed in me: “English only, Juan. Spanish will deform your lips and rot your tongue.” Petrified, el inglés abracé y solo a él, me aferré. Now, I’m in Spanish class undoing the trauma and writing en español.[1]  

“Speak English, we’re in America!” he told my aunt in a demanding tone. He was a passerby and her Spanish words were not being directed at him. “Y usted, ¿qué le dijo?” I asked my aunt incredulously. “Nada, mija. Hay muchos como él,” she replied. She was right. English-only discourses have been disseminated for centuries in the U.S. In the early 1900s, President Theodore Roosevelt stated, “We only have room for one language in this country, and it is English.” In 1998, California passed the infamous Proposition 227 that would eliminate bilingual education. Despite the fact that California has one of the most abundant populations of non-native English speakers in the country, it took almost twenty years for Proposition 227 to be repealed. In 2015, Donald Trump criticized former Florida Governor Jeb Bush for speaking in Spanish: “He’s a nice man. But he should really set the example by speaking English while in the United States.” The direct implication of President Trump’s assertion was that monolingual English speakers are nice and Spanish speakers are, well, not nice. The ease to which people can record everything on their smartphones has exposed numerous incidents across the country of individuals berating others on the basis of language use and the demand that only English be spoken. In 2019, a substitute teacher in Texas was caught on camera as she told a student, “Speak English. We’re in America. Give me your phone.” In West Virginia, a customer told the manager of a Mexican Restaurant to “get the f*** out of her country” and demanded for him to speak English while in America. In Wisconsin, a woman verbally attacked a Puerto Rican family for listening to Spanish music while barbequing at a park. In New York City, where 48% of the population speaks a language other than English at home[2], a lawyer threatened to call immigration after he heard two women speak Spanish at a restaurant. These incidents are not uncommon occurrences caused by deranged individuals – they are the fruit of our nation’s racist history against brown people.

The insistence that Spanish should not be spoken in the U.S. is driven by anti-immigrant and racist beliefs that are historically inaccurate. Anti-Spanish language policies, discourses, and behaviors cannot be examined in isolation from white supremacy. The fact that English is the most commonly spoken language in the U.S. is indisputable, but the U.S. does not have an official language at the federal level. Anti-Spanish-language views are prompted, in part, by incorrect assumptions that Spanish is the language of foreign invaders. Spanish is not a foreign language, and in many parts of the U.S., it has a longer history than English.[3] In 1848, the Treaty of Guadalupe ended the Mexican-American War and the U.S. took over 55% of Mexico’s territory, which included present-day California, Arizona, New Mexico, parts of Nevada, Utah, and Colorado. In 1898, the Treaty of Paris ended the Spanish-Cuban-American War, making Puerto Rico a U.S. territory, and in 1917, the U.S. granted Puerto Ricans U.S. citizenship through the Jones Act. Spanish is a U.S. language. There are currently close to 53 million Spanish speakers in the U.S. There are more Spanish-speakers in the U.S. than in any other nation in the world, except for Mexico.[4] “Speak English, we’re in America” is, at its best, an ignorant declaration and at its worst, a hateful attempt to deny our existence.

You told me that if I spoke a little less Spanish you would love me, that if I looked a little more white, you would hug me. I masked my brownness, buried my language and still, you despise me. Jesus is light, Jesus is white! You color-coded my existence. Now, I’m in a dark place, a brave space.[5]  

“With your head facing the wall, you would bend down and he [the teacher] would get a paddle and hit you in your bottom and it was hard enough that your head bounced against the wall,” recalls Irene Tovar, Executive Director of the Latin American Civic Association and alumna of Pacoima Elementary School in Los Angeles. The violation? Speaking Spanish, whether it be in the classroom or on the playground. This was not an isolated case in the 1960s-70s or one that created public outrage or civil suits. It was a common and accepted form of punishment for teachers to wash the mouths of their Spanish-speaking students with soap, hit them and verbally abuse them for uttering words in their home language. Latina/o children were explicitly taught through violent measures that Spanish was dirty, undesirable, unworthy and transgressive. The message communicated to them was that the language that their parents spoke was inferior and should be forgotten. The U.S. public education system taught Latina/o students to be ashamed of the Spanish language, literally beating it out of them. Traumatized by the abuse they had endured, when those students became parents, many of them made the conscientious decision to not pass on the language.    

Despite the staggering amount of evidence that supports bilingualism, many well-intended teachers and administrators promote English monolingualism and discourage parents from speaking to their children in other languages. Fearing that their child will be confused, develop a stutter or language disorders, some families opt to not teach their children their home language, and by doing so, unknowingly, disadvantage them. Some of these myths were initially propagated by seemingly reputable studies that were deeply flawed. These studies compared the performance of monolingual students from privileged backgrounds to bilingual students from disadvantaged groups. Researchers concluded that the use of multiple languages was harmful and ignored socioeconomic vulnerabilities as a factor; they saw bilingualism, and not poverty, as the problem. Though these studies have long been debunked, they have persisted as truths, largely, because they support anti-immigrant and racist ideologies that believe brown bodies, and their languages, to be inferior.   

“I don’t want my kids to speak with an accent,” was commonly said by Latina/o parents who did not teach their children Spanish. This statement was usually followed by, “because I don’t want them to be discriminated against.” In reality, we all have accents. Linguists define accent as a particular way of speaking distinctive of a specific nation, location, or individual. Therefore, it is impossible to speak without an accent. To Californians, individuals from New York, Texas and Chicago have accents, and vice versa. Irish and Australians might note the American accent of tourists and city folk will allude to the accent of rural people. Non-standard or undesirable accents in any given group are contextually determined. Jesus himself had a non-standard accent[6]. Despite the fact that everyone has an accent, not all accents are perceived to be equally acceptable. In the U.S., British and French accents are usually thought of as being sexy or sophisticated whereas Indian or Nigerian accents are discredited. The concern that children will be discriminated against for speaking with a non-accepted accent is valid and well-grounded. However, Latina/o children will also be discriminated against for looking brown, having a Spanish last name, or living in a certain neighborhood. We stopped teaching Spanish to our children as a protective strategy, as a survival mechanism disguised as choice. We sacrificed our descendants’ ability to speak with their own family in service of racist ideologies. We forcefully traded our ability to communicate with our familias in exchange for a little bit of acceptance from a system that does not recognize us as image-carriers. Acceptance that is based on negating parts of our identity, that asks us to hate ourselves and that demands us to sever ties with our communities is not acceptance, it is oppression.  

Assimilation is a frail lifeline created by a racist system that confuses uniformity with unity. Assimilation demands us to inflict pain on ourselves as a rite of passage. Assimilation defies God’s creativeness and rejects the heavens described in Revelation: “After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands” (7:9, NRSV). We are united by one true God, integrated into God’s kin-dom[7], but our differences are not erased, they are God-made, welcomed and celebrated.    

Quería decirte sana, sana, colita de rana pero para protegerte te murmuré, everything will be ok. Quería darte un apapacho but instead, I gave you a hug. Quería que supieras que a Dios le hablamos de tú, que ‘extended family’ es inexistente y que el ‘si Dios lo permite’ y ‘con el favor de Dios’ forman parte de nuestro andar. Quería que el español no fuera background noise to you, como un eco atrapado en el olvido. They held a gun to our head and said, “give us your children’s Spanish or we will kill them.” Mijito, I couldn’t see you die. I gave them what they wanted. Quería que entendieras las palabras en este poema, quería que no te sintieras como foráneo en tu propia familia, quería que el abuelo te contara sus historias, pero también quería, quería que sobrevivieras…[8]   

Visualize the following scenario: A Spanish speaker is walking to the store. She buys milk, hurriedly walks back to the house and answers a phone call. Who did you imagine? More specifically, what was the ethnic background of the person that you envisioned? It is highly likely that your visual reference was that of a Latina/o person. If you are Latina/o, you might’ve even pictured yourself or a family member. Languages are intrinsically associated to people groups and Spanish in the U.S. is immediately linked to Latin-American immigrants. The notion that a country has of a people group will directly impact their perception of the language spoken by that group of people.

“When white people speak Spanish, it’s a global skill. When Latinx people speak Spanish, it’s a threat to the country”

— Dr. José Medina

It is estimated that 50-70% of the world population is bilingual or multilingual.[9] In many parts of the world, including Asia, Latin America and Europe, multilingual education is the norm and the importance of languages is highly stressed. Many wealthy families even pay private language tutors and yet, in the U.S., where we are blessed to have the opportunity to be in community and learn from individuals of diverse linguistic backgrounds, we discourage bilingualism. However, bilingualism is not discouraged equally amongst all ethnic groups. People of color, specifically, are punished for their linguistic skills while white people are praised for their abilities. “Kylie La Gringa King” recently became a TikTok sensation for making videos in which she appears speaking Spanish, specifically a Mexican colloquial variety, while performing daily tasks. Her efforts are publicly applauded, and her Spanish is admired. Learning a new language is an arduous task and a profound undertaking. It takes dedication, humility, and courage to learn a new language and Kylie should be praised for her efforts but so should Alejandra, Natalia, José, and Ernesto. Instead, Latina/o people are discriminated against for speaking Spanish but also vilified by their own communities for not speaking it.  

I was riding the bus with my best friend one afternoon when I asked a girl, who clearly looked Latina, a question in Spanish. “I don’t speak Spanish,” she responded, with a tone of exhaustion in her voice. My friend and I laughed at her and murmured, “esta quien se cree, si tiene el nopal en la frente.”[10] I vividly remember feeling annoyed and offended that another Latina girl would dare to pretend she didn’t know Spanish. Years later, as I sat in a college class unearthing my history, I felt the desperate impulse to find that girl on the bus and ask for her forgiveness.

Shame has persistently burdened the Latina/o community in the U.S. We have been put to shame for speaking Spanish and have also shamed each other for not speaking it or not speaking it as well as others think we should by virtue of the brownness of our faces. Humiliation is a terrible pedagogical strategy. If you are a Spanish speaker who desires to encourage other Latina/os to learn the language, do not humiliate them. Twenty-seven percent of the U.S.-Latina/o population does not speak Spanish at home (Pew Research Center 2015). Poet Melissa Lozada-Oliva, describes her relationship with Spanish as an “itchy phantom limb” that “is reaching for words and only finding air.”[11] Many heritage learners[12] are working tirelessly in Spanish classes and elsewhere to reconnect with the language. For U.S.-Latina/os, Spanish is not simply a global skill or a resume booster – it is the opportunity to reconnect with their loved ones in a deeper way; it is the possibility to understand the stories that shaped their families. Black U.S.-Mexican poet Ariana Brown expresses the emotional turmoil felt by Latina/o learners in Spanish class in a powerful poem titled, Dear White Girls in my Spanish Class: “What is it like to be a tourist in the halls of my shame? To not be expected to speak better than you do? How does it feel to take a foreign language for fun? To owe your history nothing?”[13]       

El español es resistencia en este país. Learning or speaking Spanish while Latina/o is an act of resistance. Proving one’s Latinidad should not be the motivating factor behind learning Spanish. Teaching Spanish to future generations cannot be tied to issues of cultural authenticity or legitimacy and “linguistic ability should not be held against the diaspora’s children.”[14] However, speaking Spanish allows us to form deeper bonds with our communities; it enables us to explore parts of our heritage that can be illuminated more clearly under the light of the Spanish language and makes it possible for us to learn from our abuelitas’ theologies.        

Me inculcaste el amor hacia mi idioma. El español abrazaste, como agua lo valoraste. El inglés lo aprendiste, como lengua adicional lo quisiste. I love learning Spanish, I told my mother and it warmed her heart. I’m a child of God, I said. Un hijo de Dios, I smiled. Yahweh’s words echoed in me: “All languages are beautiful, Juan. Spanish will give you wings and help you fly.” Excited, el español usé y el Spanglish también lo adopté. Now, I’m in my home, tomando café con pan y leyendo la historia de Rut con mis nietos.[15]  

About Dra. Itzel meduri soto

As an academic from el barrio, Dra. Meduri Soto strives to engage in scholarly work that honors and gives visibility to her community. Her faith drives her passion for justice as she seeks to reveal the ways in which certain language ideologies are constructed to operate unjustly against our communities. Her work acknowledges language as a powerful tool and promotes linguistic diversity in its different manifestations. Bicultural and bilingual identities are at the center of Dra. Meduri Soto’s work. She is a Spanish professor at Biola University where she teaches second language and heritage language learners. To learn more about her work, follow her on Instagram: @la.dra.itzel

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Footnotes

[1] “El español crucificado” (2020) by Itzel Reyes.

[2] Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (2019).

[3] See Dr. Rosina Lozano’s book titled, “An American Language: The History of Spanish in the United States” (2018).

[4] Instituto Cervantes (2015). For full article, click here.

[5] “Burying my Language” (2020) by Itzel Reyes.  

[6] Galileans were peasant farmers who were bilingual in Aramaic and Greek, as explained by Dr. Robert Chao Romero in Brown Church: Five Centuries of Latina/o Social Justice, Theology and Identity (2020).

[7] A term used by mujerista theologian Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz.

[8] “Our Spanish is Hostage” (2020) by Itzel Reyes.

[9] Grosjean, Francois. Bilingualism’s Best Kept Secret (2010).

[10] Translation: Who does she think she is, she’s obviously of Mexican descent. Con el nopal en la frente is a derogatory Mexican expression that literally translates as, with a cactus on your forehead.

[11] My Spanish (2015).  

[12] A person who has a cultural connection to the language they are learning.

[13] Dear White Girls in my Spanish Class (2017).

[14] Emanuel Padilla. Too Much or Not Enough (2020)

[15] “El español resucitado” (2020) by Itzel Reyes.

Too Much or Not Enough

“The distance between one person and another is really a story.””

— Karen Figueroa, The Mestizo Podcast, Ep. 2

I don’t remember what I said. Whatever it was, it made an impression on him. He pressed again, asking, “Where did you learn that?” “I don’t know,” I responded. “It’s just something we say all the time back home.” “I haven’t heard that since my Abuela died years ago,” he said, speaking more to himself than to me. It was as if he was reliving a memory; he was transported somewhere else. So was I. He was an elder at the church I recently joined in Chicago, a Puerto Rican who spent nearly the entirety of his life in this city.  I was new to Chicago, returning to the Midwest after a decade in Central Florida. Whatever I said, sent him from the city to the Island, but the words didn’t have the power for a joint trip. I landed just short of the island. Close, but not close enough.

The irony of this exchange is that it endeared me to this elder. It made me an insider, someone who understood the “old tongue.” He made a habit of inviting me to Sunday meals where his wife cooked “a lo antiguo.”[1] Arroz con gandules. Carne guisada con arroz y habichuelas. These were contidiano (ordinary) in my house growing up. What was not ordinary was the impression it made on this elder. Apparently, he was surprised to see a young man still eating this way. I wasn’t used to being treated like I was “authentically” Puerto Rican, yet there I was each Sunday being celebrated by a man and his wife for doing simple things like enjoying tostones.

In Chicago, with this elder, I was celebrated for being “more authentic” than some of the other Puerto Ricans in my generation. To my shame, I reveled in the admiration. Back in Florida, where an estimated 34% of Osceola county’s population identified as Puerto Rican and a large portion of these residents are recent arrivals from the Island, I was never “authentic” enough. My Spanish sounded learned in comparison. My taste for traditional Puerto Rican dishes was refined, but my rhythms, my “flow” was never quite right. Pero en Chicago, I was to my peers what the Ricans in Florida were to me. I was “authentic.” Or, at least, in the eyes of this elder, I was close enough.

Distancia y Dynamica

The Mestizo Podcast is a project that came with an emotional risk. I was nervous about publishing content from a uniquely Latina/o perspective and how that would be received. For my white peers in evangelical academia, I worried it would turn them off to the content, but the greater fear was related to how my Hispanic peers would receive it. Would it be welcomed as an answer to prayer? That was my hope. I prayed regularly for an outlet for conversations about interstitial identities. Experience taught me, however, that whomever starts these conversations gets evaluated, measured against the listeners’ perceptions. For some, I would be too Hispanic to be relevant. For others, I wouldn’t be Hispanic enough. I would be perceived as too white, too Americano, “de afuera” (from the outside). Exiled from one. Not welcome by the other.

During the second episode of the show, Karen Figueroa said, “The distance between one person and another is really a story.” I wondered weeks later about the amount of distance a story could cover. Could a story really tie the two generations of Hispanics together? Could it bridge the distance between Florida and Puerto Rico? In my experience, your proximity to the Island defined how Puerto Rican you were. How often did you visit as a kid? Did you live there at any point? Were you born there? Did you speak Spanish? If so, how was your accent? These questions represented the hermeneutic for deciding your Puerto Rican-ness. But Karen made me wonder, could a story relativize the island? Could narrative beat land the way paper covers rock?

A recent chat with a friend brought these questions to greater focus. After making a joke about the phrase “sin pelos en la lengua”[2] not making sense to me, we debated the image and origin of the phrase. She reminded me that these kinds of expressions are “formed en los barrios de la isla por gente con mucha oralidad.”[3] Then she concluded by saying that the idiom is not meant to be convenient for “gringos” or “una generación que no está conectada a ese contexto.”[4] Admittedly, the joke may have offended her as an Island-born Puerto Rican. In our chat, I felt I was perceived as an outsider mocking something I couldn’t understand. I felt I was perceived as lacking the connection that led to understanding. That may be true, but there is also another possibility. Is my connection strictly related to my physical distance to the Island, or is it possible I am connected via something else?

Oral Cultures and Exiles

In his Nobel-prize-winning book, El Hablador (The Storyteller), Mario Vargas Llosa tells of a young man named Saul, who abandons Peruvian society to become an Hablador of the Machiguenga. The Machiguenga is a tribe that lives as scattered family camps across the Peruvian-Amazon rather than live together as one complete community. In this unusual, dispersed way, the Machiguengas claim the entire forest as theirs, each family taking up their own corner of it and moving as food would require. Only one person traveled from family to family connecting them together. El Hablador.

For the Machiguenga, the storyteller is of sacred, indeed religious importance. The storyteller’s job was simple enough: to speak. “Their mouths were the connecting links of this society that the fight for survival had forced to split up and scatter… Thanks to the storytellers, fathers had news of their sons and brothers of their sisters … thanks to them they were all kept informed of the deaths, births, and other happenings in the tribe.” The storyteller did not only bring current news; he spoke of the past. He is the memory of the community, fulfilling a function like that of the troubadours of the Middle Ages. The storyteller traveled great distances to remind each member of the tribe that despite their miles of separation, they still formed one community, shared a tradition, beliefs, ancestors, misfortunes, and joys. The storytellers, writes Vargas Llosa, were the lifeblood that circulated through Machiguenga society, giving it one interconnected and interdependent life.

The Machiguenga storyteller is “tangible proof that storytelling can be something more than mere entertainment … something primordial, something that the very existence of a people may depend on.”

Vargas Llosa’s book highlights the importance of the story for exiled portions of a people group. What makes the Machiguenga a single people isn’t their proximity to a center or place of origin. There is no required pilgrimage for the Machinguenga that reinforces their identity. The story, and their regular submersion in it, is what makes every member, even those born on the outer limits of the jungle, part of the tribe. For persons like me, this makes sense as an explanation of my identity. Yes, as my friend rightly noted, Puerto Rican phrases come from an oral culture, but many of us US-born Puerto Ricans understand that far more than we are given credit. We know that our Rican-identity is rooted in this oral tradition. We aren’t Puerto Rican by the simple fact of an Island birth. Our identity relies on something more complex; it relies on our live connection to the oral tradition – stories, bombas, dichos, bailes, poesías, and even phrases like the one I lightheartedly teased. Like the people of Israel in the Old Testament, we are a people because of a shared narrative.

Generational Responsibility

Many of my Chicago friends who identify as Puerto Rican don’t speak Spanish. For a long time, I put on airs because I did. This is typical among 2nd and 3rd generation Hispanics, to judge and be judged. Those who rank higher on the Puerto Rican-ness scale usually take on the role of gatekeeper, withholding the right to claim certain parts of Puerto Rican identity from others lower on the scale. There are so many stories about the pain caused by this kind of intercommunity conflict. Here are just two snapshots of how it makes the non-Spanish speaker feel.

Both tweets reflect infighting between LatinX people based on judgments about what it means to be LatinX. There are myriad reasons why this kind of conflict continues, and some are legitimate and worth addressing; the colorism in our community primary among them. However, there are also several reasons why linguistic ability should not be held against the diaspora’s children. As Gina Rodriguez, star of Jane the Virgin, stated, many parents refused to teach children Spanish, hoping they would lose the accent and be offered greater opportunities in the “white world.” Learning Spanish was not an option. It was discouraged.

I sympathize with parents who made this tough decision in hopes for a better life for their children. They could not foresee the way the Hispanic community would boom and gain influence today. Of course, this is one of many possible reasons for the loss of the language and culture. I am not accusing parents or blaming them for this loss. An individual’s flourishing (or diminishing) ability to access their cultural resources is in large part affected by the community. If the immigrant generation made a mistake by not passing the language down, there is still enough time and resources for it to be restored by the community. Once more, this is where the Machiguenga teach a vital lesson. Cultures survive because of storytellers not gatekeepers. We need a new way forward in the restoration and preservation of the Latinos’ community wealth, one that removes the judgment and includes the diversity of the diaspora’s children. We need more Habladores and fewer gatekeepers.

Galatas and the First Gatekeepers

Again, a gatekeeper is someone who “takes it upon themselves to decide who does or does not have access or rights to a community or identity.”[5] Gatekeepers may do this intentionally or by instinct – an impulse taught to them by the culture. I acted as a gatekeeper in my hubris about speaking Spanish. Whether with the intention of keeping the culture “pure” or the instinct to establish their standard, gatekeepers devalue “other’s opinions on something by claiming they’re not entitled to the opinion because they’re not qualified, … [or] a part of a particular group.”[6]

One of the earliest accounts of cultural gatekeepers is the small letter included in the Bible as the book of Galatians. The conflict that inspired Paul to write this letter was the arrival of Jewish believers to the region of Galatia. These new arrivals argued that non-Jewish Christians had to adopt Jewish practices and customs to truly belong to the people of God. Paul wrote with passion, reminding the church of his past as a zealous follower of Jewish tradition. He writes, “I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people and was extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers” (Gal. 1:14). Like the generational ranking that happens among LatinX people today, Paul was highly ranked as a Jew among Jews, yet he relativizes the Jewish Law by reminding the church of the essential element that identifies them as Christians – the gospel.

Paul is an Hablador. He knows the stories and focuses on the central narrative that ties this people together as one. Paul acknowledges the wisdom of the Law but presses the point that the Law was insufficient. It is faith in Jesus Christ that makes them sons and daughters of God. “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28). The good news of Jesus’ death and resurrection births a mestizo Church. It also enables a new form of relating between mestizos. “Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other” (Gal. 5:25-26).

The gospel is a unique story in that it has the power to birth community across disparate and even enemy groups. Paul’s argument is also instructive for people within the same group. Puerto Ricans in the diaspora already know the importance of storytelling. While we may not understand every practice nor practice every custom, Habladores like Paul help us stay connected to them. They also help grow the story’s community to include the diaspora’s experience. Among young US-born Latina/os, there are some recording our history, researching our dances, and writing new poetry. These represent a collection of new Habladores, storytellers who bring new life to the older generation, demonstrating that the culture isn’t dying. The culture has always been close to the diaspora, not because of their proximity to the Island, but because of their rehearsal of the stories.

About Emanuel Padilla

Emanuel Padilla is President of World Outspoken, a ministry dedicated to preparing the mestizo church for cultural change through training, content, and partnership development. He is also an instructor of Bible and Theology at Moody Bible Institute. Emanuel is committed to drawing the insights of the Latina/o church for the blessing of the wider church body. He consults with churches on issues of diversity, organizational culture, and community engagement.

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Footnotes

[1] Trans. - Old school or traditional.

[2] An expression that generally means, “When you’re so blunt not even hairs could soften the words.”

[3] Translation: “formed in the hoods of the island by people with an oral tradition.”

[4] Translation: “a generation that isn’t connected to that context.”

[5] “Urban Dictionary: Gatekeeping,” Urban Dictionary, accessed May 24, 2020, https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Gatekeeping.

[6] “Urban Dictionary: Gatekeeper,” Urban Dictionary, accessed May 24, 2020, https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Gatekeeper.

What you missed in the “Halftime Show was Inappropriate” Debate

What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object? If this paradox were possible, it would be about Latina music and fashion in the US. The unstoppable force of Latina hips as they gyrate to the rhythm of dembow, salsa, and champeta would crash like hurricane winds against the fortified opinions of white America’s glass house. On Sunday, Feb. 2nd, the paradox was on full display when Shakira and J.Lo became the first Latina singers to headline the Super Bowl halftime show. The debris of opinions scattered all over Twitter and Facebook are the unavoidable aftermath from this collision. On one level, that may have been the desired effect of a performance as culturally centered as this one, but on another, the opinions trending online reveal deep undercurrents of racism, cultural myopia, and some problems with woke culture. Here are three key points where the conversation went wrong and a proposal for new dialogue.

Modesty Standards and Whiteness

Whiteness is a loaded word; I realize that it strikes many readers differently. For my purposes, whiteness is not about pigmentation. I am not referring to people with lighter skin tones. In fact, no one has ever been white, and there are many Latino/as with light complexions. I use whiteness as the name for the racial system here in the US and in other countries affected by colonization. Whiteness has theological underpinnings and is supported by bad science. It is rooted in the idea that physical differences gave inherent, God-given, superiority to Western Europeans, their descendants, and their way of life. As a system, whiteness continues to promote this singular culture, forcing all others to conform to it. Much of the conversation regarding this year’s halftime performance reflects the way the system (what I am calling whiteness) shapes our experience.

Many viewers felt as though the half time show was a “racy, vulgar, and totally inappropriate performance.” These opinions mostly focus on the clothing and movement styles of the Latina performer, and they usually reduce the performance to a display of erotic sexuality meant to arouse. However, this perception of the performance drastically misunderstands the differences between Hispanic and “White” culture. These opinions either reflect a polarizing posture toward cultural difference that overly romanticizes one’s own culture (in this case, white culture) and overly criticizes the other culture (in this case, Latin American culture), or they could reflect a minimizing posture toward cultural difference that assumes that all cultures operate under universal rules for modesty, displays of human sexuality (particularly female sexuality), and dance.

The differences between the two cultural worlds reflect a network of values, beliefs, and assumptions about the body and its meaning. What does it mean to demonstrate technical skill in rhythmic, Afro-Latin dance styles? What does it communicate to move our bodies in outfits that accentuate the movements? How should it – Latin dance in Latin clothing – be understood? To answer these questions, we need a dialogue about female bodies that is not framed by whiteness.  We need a conversation where the terms match the subject. At present, the majority response to the halftime show suggests we do not fully know what to make of Hispanic female bodies.

The Big Picture

In most cases where pop-culture events cause controversy, people zero-in on a specific moment that epitomizes what they appreciated or what displeased them. This event did the same. In many of the reactions for/against the halftime show there appears to be a handful of moments that standout. The most meme-able of these moments was Shakira’s zaghrouta, a sound made by sticking out one’s tongue and letting out a high-pitched sound which is common among women in the Middle East expressing joy or other strong emotions. (Shakira is of Lebanese descent). There was also J.Lo’s brief dance on a pole, something that no doubt was incorporated after her grueling training in preparation for the Hustlers movie. These two, among other moments from the show, were cause for critique and dismissal. In response, however, many have argued that the focus is wrongly placed. Instead, they propose the emphasis should be on the choir of children displayed in cages as J.Lo’s 11-year-old daughter, Emme, led them in a rendition of “Born in the U.S.A.” [1] This, they counter, should be the focus of the event because it sends a powerful message about the border crisis.

In both arguments there is a flaw. No event, much less one as packed with symbols and meaning as this one, should be reduced to a single moment. Instead, the event must be interpreted in its totality. The viewer must ask questions about how each moment and symbol contributes to the meaning of the other. Once done, the viewer should decipher a theme, and they should consider how each symbol contributed to it. To understand the theme, the viewer should also explore the world behind the event. What factors led to Shakira and J.Lo being the first Latina’s to headline the halftime show? What might have inspired the choreography and setting of the show? How do these antecedents affect the way the viewer reads the event? This performance, as any pop-culture product, must be interpreted as a complex whole rather than be reduced to a simple flashpoint.

The Black/White Binary?

There is a third current of discussion worth reviewing here. In the many reactions that flooded Twitter after the Super Bowl Halftime show, Jemele Hill’s exemplifies a response that may implicitly communicate two assumptions worth challenging. Here is her tweet:

The language of crucifixion aside, Hill’s point seems to be that black woman had to pay a price, pave the way, for Latinas to now thrive. It also may imply – though it is worth emphasizing that it also may not – that Latinas are reaping a reward that is not their due. While Janet Jackson did have a role in the start of J.Lo’s career, the point may be overstated. First, it implies a bad binary. It is possible that those who are making this argument are still working from a black/white binary that requires all acts of social progress to come from one of these two “archetypes.” This, however, misunderstands the role Hispanics really have in the fabric of American culture. I dealt with this in a previous article, but my thoughts can be summarized this way: we cannot make sense of race in America by using two categories. These Latinas have women in their own heritage that contributed to their success. Women like Selena, Celia Cruz, and Gloria Estefan all contributed to the foundations of Latina celebrity that J.Lo and Shakira now embody so fully. The Latina contribution to progress in pop-culture should not be reduced just as the African American women’s contribution should not be overemphasized. Progress is not zero-sum. The success of Latinas only contributes to the overall reimagining of American society without taking away from the success of African American women.

Reimagining America con Salsa y Sabor

The halftime show included one moment that caused some viewers, especially Latinos, brief anxiety. While her daughter Emme sung “Born in the U.S.A.,” J.Lo reemerged on the stage wearing what appeared to be an American flag. After joining her daughter in the song, J.Lo opened the flag to reveal that it was double-sided, displaying the Puerto Rican flag on the inside. This symbol, in the context of the whole show, reimagines the US-American identity, putting a new proposal on center stage. The NFL Super Bowl is an US holiday, and the NFL has recently been the stage for conversations about what it means to be a US-American and even patriotic. This year’s halftime show added to the conversation by reminding us that mestizos are American, and Americans are mestizo. Shakira and J.Lo put their mestizaje on full display by singing in Spanglish, honoring their heritage in the Bronx, Baranquilla, and Lebanon, and dancing in Afro-Latin styles. They showed the world that there never really was a paradox. They were unstoppable. Now we have to be movable. Join their dance and the new world that it imagines.

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Footnote

[1] It’s worth noting that as an 11-year-old, Emme lives in an America that is remarkably different from her mother’s version. Non-Hispanic whites already are less than 50% of the youth population in 632 of America’s 3,142 counties. According to research published by National Geographic, 2020 was projected as the year when 50.2% of American children would be from today’s minority groups. “As America Changes, Some Anxious Whites Feel Left Behind,” Magazine, March 12, 2018, https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2018/04/race-rising-anxiety-white-america/.

Planting in Babylon Pt. 2

Maybe I’m not over it. Maybe the choice to start by telling this story is proof that it still bothers me. Still. Even if I’m “in my feelings,” I’m convinced he missed the point. Several years ago, while still in grad school, I submitted a paper on a model for multi-cultural congregations that I was quite proud of in the end. I had worked hard on the paper and included a theological argument for diversity I thought was soundly reasoned. When I got it back from my favorite professor, it included this feedback:

“I am puzzled why you have turned to the Exodus narrative to emphasize the multiethnic nature of God’s redeemed people.  Why not [use] the NT passages that more explicitly emphasize … God’s design of making His church multiethnic and its theological significance?”

This question is at the heart of this article. I believe God’s plan was always about making a mestizo people that would reflect His character on earth by making the world as it should be – a place of beauty, justice, and goodness. People failed to do this time and time again, but that doesn’t change the plan. He is redeeming a mixed multitude and calling them to create, to plant gardens, and build communities that set things right and restore His order. If this was always His plan, then it should be seen in the story the first time He rescued people and called them His own. In fact, the identity of Israel should hint to God’s plan for a multiethnic people just as the Church finally displays it. And, it does.

Returning from Exile

At the end of part one of this series, I noted the promise God made to Israel while they were exiled in Babylon. He said, “I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you, and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile” (Jer. 29:14). This promise reveals a second important identity marker for God’s people. The first was our non-innocence, our inability to work in Babylon as self-righteous missionaries detached from the city. The second is our mestizaje, our mixed identity as one chosen nation, a royal priesthood called to reveal His character (1 Pet. 2:9). We do this in our work (which will be explored further in the final part of this series), but we also do this in our very existence as a community. This is the focus of this article, and with all due respect to my former professor, the best way to show the importance of our mestizaje is to start at the beginning of the story.

The first time God rescued a people from slavery and called them His own, he rescued a mixed multitude (Exod. 12:38). The exodus story – the story of how the Lord rescued Israel from slavery to Egypt by sending Moses as His messenger – is essential to understanding how salvation happens in the Bible, what it means, and what it does to those who are saved. The Exodus was a significant part of ancient Israel’s history and identity.[1] It shaped their understanding of God and His works of salvation.[2] In fact, every time salvation happens in the bible, it’s meant to be understood as an echo of the exodus, a “new exodus,” a repetition of the pattern set in Egypt. While in exile, Israel waited on God to rescue them yet again in another powerful exodus that would bring them back home to their land. However, when they finally did return home, they quickly realized they had not yet been fully freed, and the exodus pattern remained unfinished. That is how the Old Testament ends, but for the careful reader paying attention to the pattern, the start of the New Testament should thrill because it introduces a new Moses, Jesus of Nazareth.

The writers of the New Testament, being faithful Jews, framed the story of Jesus as a great exodus. N.T. Wright argues that in the letter to Ephesus Paul is using the phrase, “guarantee of our inheritance” to draw from the themes of the Exodus narrative.[3] According to Wright, Galatians chapter four is part of a larger thought-unit “of the rescue of God’s people and the whole world from the ‘Egypt’ of slavery.”  He observes clear “exodus language” in Galatians 4:1-7 that is echoed in Romans 8:12-17. He goes on to say, “by overlaying that great story across the even greater one of the accomplishment of the Messiah, rescuing his people from the present evil age, Paul is able to say… this is therefore how you are rescued from sin and death.”[4]

If the exodus is this important to our understanding of all the salvation acts in the Bible, especially the way we understand Jesus’ acts in saving the Church, then the details of Israel’s salvation identity should inform the way we read Paul and other NT writers’ words about the multi-ethnic makeup of the Church. Precisely for this reason, Exodus chapter 12 verse 38 can’t be glossed over. At the very least, the mixed multitude of Israelites who left Egypt as God’s people included the half-Egyptian children of Joseph that formed the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh. That means that “Israel” included some who had the blood of their oppressor. The verse says that a “mixed multitude also” (emph. mine) went with Israel. This suggests that other non-Israelites-by-blood went out of Egypt as part of God’s people. The instructions that follow Israel’s exit assume this mixed group.

The first instructions are for the Passover meal which commemorated God’s rescue of Israel from slavery. In these instructions God includes this accommodation: “A foreigner residing among you who wants to celebrate the Lord’s Passover must have all the males in his household circumcised; then he may take part like one born in the land … The same law applies both to the native-born and to the foreigner residing among you” (Exod. 12:48-49). This instruction, including its details about circumcision, and the ones that immediately follow are all about marking the identity of Israel. They make clear who belongs as part of God’s people. For instance, the next instruction is for a memorial that would be celebrated on the new calendar God gave them (see 12:2; 13:3-9). Holidays were established for Israel to remember who they were as the rescued slaves that were now God’s people.

The New Exodus

As the greater Moses (Heb. 3:3), Jesus accomplished a greater exodus. Therefore, the mixed multitude of Israel is only but a hint of the mestizaje of the Church. Like any biblical theme, the mixed identity of Israel grows more complex yet clear as the story continues. By the time Israel was exiled in Babylon, Ruth the Moabites had married into Israel. Rahab the Jerichoan prostitute joined the nation. These are only two examples of the many times Scripture makes clear that “Israel” is a complex name for a mixed people belonging to the Lord. When Jeremiah writes his letter to the exiles, he reveals that the Israelites were going to experience another mestizaje. They wouldn’t return to Israel exactly as they had left it. They would now bring back some of Babylon with them.

The Lord’s instructions to the Babylonian exiles was to plant gardens, build homes, and marry off their children. They were to become part of the fabric of Babylon. It was there, as members of the city, that the Jewish community developed synagogues. It was there that they developed new cultural rhythms that would mark them as God’s people. When Jeremiah, on behalf of the Lord, writes, “I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you, and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile” (Jer. 29:14), he is hinting that Israel would be a land of diverse experiences with a new Israeli community that now includes cultural expressions from nations abroad. Indeed, this is seen today. In Jerusalem, near the old city, there is a series of banners along a popular bike/walk path that display people from many ethnic groups in a prayer position. The text below the banners reads, “One of the most important visions for the city of Jerusalem is its existence as a cultural and religious center for all peoples.” The banner then quotes another prophet, “for my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations” (Isaiah 56:7).

Jesus was born a Jewish man in Israel while it was under Roman rule. His experience, his cultural context, included yet another mestizaje where Roman culture played a significant role. As the new Moses, He accomplished the greatest exodus of all, and through His death and resurrection, those who follow Him are part of the greatest mixed multitude to be saved from slavery. He is fulfilling that promise written by Jeremiah and more. There is one final theological contribution from the Exodus story. Peter Enns comments that the Exodus pattern is closely aligned to the new creation theme. According to Enns, “to redeem is to re-create.”[5] God, in recreating a people of a mixed identity, is now calling them to care for and develop a culture that reflects the world as He intended it. This is the subject of the final part in this series. For now, may we live in Babylon as one beautiful display of God’s unifying love for all people. Together, we are His holy nation, His Church.

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Footnotes

[1] Ronald S. Hendel, “The Exodus in biblical memory,” Journal of Biblical Literature 120, no. 4 (2001) 601 [601-622].

[2] Otto Alfred Piper, “Unchanging promises: Exodus in the New Testament,” Interpretation 11, no. 1 (January 1, 1957) 4 [3-22].

[3] Wright, Simply Christian, 125.

[4] Wright, Justification, 136. See also pg. 157-158 point 4, where Wright argues the Exodus slavery language is part of the summary of Paul’s theology

[5] Enns, New Exodus, 216.

Somos Todos Juan Diego (We Are All Juan Diego)

I was never a Roman Catholic. I only remember a handful of experiences in a Roman Catholic church, all for the baptism or confirmation of friends. As with most Puerto Ricans I know, my faith heritage was Pentecostal-Protestantism.  We were the legacy of Azusa street. Evangelists like Nicky Cruz and Yiye Avila were the heroes of my father. My abuelo was there in New York standing precisely on the corner where David Wilkerson first preached the gospel while balanced on a fire hydrant. These were the legends passed on to me with pride and faith. They shaped more than my beliefs; they shaped my identity. I associated the boldness of these preachers with being Puerto Rican. As a theology professor, I continue to discover other treasures I inherited, women and men like Elizabeth Conde-Frazier and Orlando Costas. These now sit among the many European, African, and Middle Eastern believers from church history that form the cloud of witnesses surrounding me. Yet, among all these greats, the legend of Juan Diego now stands out as one I failed to appreciate rightly.

Mexican hermanos y hermanas will know immediately the story of Juan Diego, but for many Christians, particularly protestants, he is an unfamiliar witness. Today, December 12th, is a holy day for Mexicans as they remember Señor Diego and the first appearance of La Virgin in America. According to legend, ten years after Spanish colonizers took central Mexico in 1521, the apparition of Mary appeared to Juan Diego, an indigenous farmer and laborer. The brown-skinned Mary revealed herself to him on a hill which was formerly the site of an Aztec temple and sent him to the bishop to command that a church be built on that site. The bishop, of course, dismissed Juan Diego demanding proof of his encounter with Mary, the mother of God. Days later, Mary revealed herself to Juan again, providing the proof he needed in the form of her image miraculously painted on his tilma (a kind of hood), which can be seen in the Basilica of Mexico City to this day.

My experience with Latin-American students of a Roman Catholic heritage is that they now maintain a sharp boundary between their protestant faith and their catholic upbringing. They prefer to keep their distance from all things catholic because they have seen the heavy catholic influence on Latin American culture keep many Latinos from really considering a relationship with Jesus. This boundary is significantly reinforced from the other side of the fence. Many of my students tell tragic stories of their families rejecting them for their conversion to Protestantism. Since my experience of Roman Catholicism is limited, I do not have the same anxieties about rituals, legends, or holy days associated with it. I recognize that my lack of these experiences colors my view of Juan Diego, yet I see great value in honoring the truth implicit in his legend.

How protestants choose to engage the legend of Juan Diego is a question of contextualization. If we move too quickly to critique the legend as pagan worship of an idol, we miss the opportunity to affirm a significant treasure hidden in the story. Juan Diego was an indigenous laborer. He was not part of what Justo Gonzalez refers to as the hierarchical church that was an arm of the Spanish power. That church had no place for Juan Diego, nor did it preach a message of hope and life for people like him. The astounding twist of Diego’s story is that he was sent to speak a revealed word to the bishop. “Thus the Virgin of Guadalupe became a symbol of the affirmation of the Indian over against the Spanish, of the unlearned over against the learned, of the oppressed over against the oppressor.”[1]

The story of the appearance of Mary to Juan Diego brought millions of Mexicans to the catholic church. Laura G. Gutierrez of the University of Texas at Austin’s Department of Mexican American and Latina/o Studies says, “The fact that Our Lady of Guadalupe appeared as a brown-skinned woman speaking Nahuatl to an indigenous peasant is an important part of the narrative.”[2] The power is in the details. Mary appears with a sash around her waist, indicating she is pregnant. She is brown-skinned and speaks with one of the people in their language. She meets Juan Diego on a familiar worship site, making clear to him that he is encountering the divine. As Father Johann Roten, director of research, art, and special projects at the University of Dayton said, “You don’t have to be Catholic to respond to the affirmation, affection, and security that she offers. These are central values that go all the way back to the first appearance of the apparition.”[3]

As I consider the legend of Juan Diego today, I think it is important to affirm the truth therein that God is indeed a God for the weak. I do not worship Mary, yet this story of her revelation echoes a truth about Jesus. God made Himself knowable by taking on human flesh. He is a Jewish man from Israel. Luke, one of the writers of the gospels, emphasizes that Jesus’ arrival turns the world upside down. The first to hear of His birth are lowly shepherds like Juan Diego. Repeatedly in his account of Jesus’ life, Luke shows Jesus as concerned for the religiously hated, the unclean, and the despised. He did more than spend time with the Diegos of the ancient world, Jesus took their place, becoming despised that they might have new life. On a hill, like the Mary of this legend, Jesus reveals the love of God for the lowly. His story gives shape to Juan Diego’s legend by providing the central themes that resonate so deeply with the Mexican identity. Others have recontextualized the legend of Mary. All these retellings recognize the inherent beauty of a God who reveals Himself in recognizable ways to a poor people in need of His rescue. Somos todos Juan Diego. We are all Juan Diego.

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Footnotes

[1] Justo L. González, Mañana: Christian Theology from a Hispanic Perspective, Reprint edition edition (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1990), p. 61.

[2] “‘Our Lady Signifies a Lot’: Here’s Why We Celebrate the Virgin of Guadalupe on Dec. 12th,” NBC News, accessed December 11, 2019, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/do-you-know-about-our-lady-guadalupe-here-s-why-n828391.

[3] “‘Our Lady Signifies a Lot.’”

En La Sala and All Along the Way

En La Sala and All Along the Way

Welcoming the Next Generation into Faith Through Storytelling

“See, a long time ago, there was this family.” ”

— Miguel Rivera, Coco

Family always begins with a story. Grandma, eyes shining, recounts how Grandpa made a fool of himself asking her out. Dad remembers how hard life was that first year in America. Auntie laughs at the mistakes she made the time she changed the rice recipe. While cultural artifacts—a photograph, blanket, or dish—spark the telling of a story, the words themselves, repeated by a loved one, trace familial origins and teach values. The act of remembrance through story—an often unidentified ritual—binds subsequent generations together in shared experience.

Disney Pixar’s 2017 film Coco begins with the story of a family. A happy, music-loving family forever altered when the beloved Papa never returns home with his guitar. Miguel, a young boy and the protagonist of the film, cannot change the fact that his great-grandfather abandoned the Rivera family for a music career, leaving his great-grandmother to survive by starting a shoe business. Though extreme, we are not surprised to learn that the Rivera family now hates music, a fact often repeated as a concluding value of the family story and highlighted alongside great-grandmother’s resiliency. As the evening of El Día de los Muertos (The Day of the Dead) commences, the story of the Rivera family comes alive for Miguel, as he enters the world of the dead in search of not only his family, but validation of the values passed down to him. Miguel’s journey is one of remembrance, which solidifies his identity as a Rivera.

Storytelling is something the Latino community does well. Chicago native Jose Gonzalez highlighted this in his standup production series this summer entitled, “La Sala: Cuentos from the Latino Living Room.” Bianca Sanchez, in her Chicago Tribune article, shares the significance of story and poetry in Gonzales’ upbringing, taking place in the living room or on the front porch, as his Nicaraguan immigrant father shared Bible passages, parables, and stories of the past. Gonzalez expressed that key to his production was: “that feel, that ambience, that you are actually at home in la sala (the living room), just listening to stories and tales as if they were from your mom, your dad, your uncle or your aunt.”[1] Familial stories and proverbs, of tragedy, hope, humor, and lessons learned, serve as a means of teaching core family values from one generation to the next. The social capital of character, faith, and loyalty extend outward from the family to the community in which they reside. Yet, as Sanchez emphasizes in conclusion, “before being told outside the home [stories] are first shared in la sala.”[2]

Storytellers Carmen Agra Deedy and Karla Campillo-Soto concur on the impact of storytelling in Latino families and the Hispanic community at large. In their interview with Stephen Winick of the American Folklife Center of the Library of Congress, Deedy and Campillo-Soto share stories from their Cuban and Mexican upbringings, including immigration and transition to the United States. As storytellers, Winick points out that these Latinas choose to focus on family stories. Deedy explains: “It’s so cultural for us, you know, the [sic] everything begins at home. And the most tragic story you could ever read, write, sing about, would be about the child who has no home. Inevitably my stories weave back to home.”[3] Storytelling is by no means specific to Hispanic families and communities, but in every family, Deedy explains, there is a storyteller. These individuals carry on the remembrance of the past, welcoming the younger generation into a living example of that which the family holds dear.

Storytelling takes on new meaning for God’s people when looking at the development and furtherance of faith in the Old Testament. Standing on the border of the land of promise, after forty years of waste and wandering, Moses looked out at a people marked by the choices and stories of their parents and spoke these words:

Only take care, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things that your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. Make them known to your children and your children's children— how on the day that you stood before the Lord your God at Horeb… he declared to you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, that is, the Ten Commandments, and he wrote them on two tablets of stone."[4]

God gave his people a commandment of remembrance—by recounting the stories of the past, they would invite the next generation into the continual and living story of obedience to God’s faithful love. Further instruction was given in Deuteronomy chapter six, explaining that in all of life, while sitting in la sala, while walking along the way, when going to bed and rising in the morning, parents are to teach their children the words of the Lord, with the intent of the multiplication of God’s people in the land.

And so, Jesus too delivered a command of remembrance. This command is lived out weekly as we, the Church, gather to break bread and sip wine. These physical elements of communion, like blankets and photographs, recipes and furniture, prompt the telling of the story of our faith. We remember both the physical body of the incarnate Christ, broken to allow all people into the living story of God and our personal stories of redemption. It was during this moment in a recent church service that I watched a mother give her daughter the bread and juice. Jessie is only six, but her thoughts in children’s church display an inner understanding of the gospel, as she retells the truths she learns at home when talking and praying with her mom and grandmother. Jessie is the youngest generation of the Church, being welcomed into the living story of the gospel through her mother’s faith and faithful storytelling.

On October 31st El Día de los Muertos will commence and many Mexican families will leave photos of their loved ones on the ofrenda.. On November 28th, American families will gather to give thanks, remembering the goodness of the year with food, laughter, and football. Memories will be relived, stories told. These special days are known for storytelling. But so is today. While cooking dinner or driving to soccer practice, God has given parents and grandparents the unique opportunity to welcome their children into the shared experience of a living faith. A hospital bracelet becomes a reminder of a story of God’s healing. An old journal or sketchbook an opportunity to retell a critical moment in your faith journey. Driving by my mom’s first apartment this summer, prompted her to share the powerful impact of Christian community in her life as a young adult with no believing family. A story I resonate with, living far from my own family support system. Her story welcomed me into the journey of faith we both share. Just as the elements of communion remind the older generation of the faithful love of God, let them be the spark for the words, the stories of His provision, an honest recounting of the challenges of walking in obedience. So then, as the youngest of the Church step out of the security of la sala, they will know who they are—members of the family of God.

About Emily C. Alexander

A first generation college graduate of a rural working class family, Emily C. Alexander recently completed her undergraduate degree in Ministry to Women at the Moody Bible Institute. Emily lives in Chicago where she enjoys long walks admiring architecture and pondering theological and sociological issues. Her hope is to impact the lives of women and the flourishing of the church through thoughtful theological engagement.

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Footnotes

[1] Sanchez

[2] Sanchez

[3] Latina Storyteller Oral History, Library of Congress

[4] Deuteronomy 4.9, 10b, 14.

What Latin Hospitality Taught Me About the Gospel

Mid-stride, I noticed his home. It was out of place. No wait, the porch was out of place. This summer I lived at a busy intersection dividing Chicago’s Wicker and Humboldt Park neighborhoods. Directly on my running route through Wicker, I discovered an older gentleman who consistently sat on the patio extending beyond the tiny porch of his home. Even when his chair was vacant, the front door hung open and a water glass sat at the table waiting for his return or the arrival of a friend. It is not that Wicker Park lacks beautiful porches, it is that this gentleman’s porch is a flavor that one would typically connect to Humboldt Park—spilling into the street, extending a vibrant welcome punctuated by unconventional paint selection, flowers, statues and flags. This porch speaks of warm, Latin hospitality.

In a technology-driven era with decreasing face to face connection, the western church has recently emphasized the concept of biblical hospitality. A brief online search leads to articles and blogposts, lamenting the loss of in-home hosting and after church lunches around the kitchen table. In 2018, author and speaker Rosaria Butterfield furthered the discussion with her book, The Gospel Comes with a House Key: Practicing Radically Ordinary Hospitality in Our Post-Christian World. Butterfield calls the church to a lifestyle of hospitality as a principle means of welcoming the lost into the gospel of Christ. House church movements, such as Legacy Christian Fellowship in Chicago, are an increasing church plant model in urban areas, making church accessible to those who may not set foot in a church building. As the church seeks to live out biblical hospitality for the growth of the Kingdom of God, a valuable lesson can be learned from the front porches of the Latino community.

Urban planner and community activist, James Rojas, is a pioneer and leading thinker in “Latino urbanism” and Latin placemaking in America’s neighborhoods. Immigrating to neighborhoods planned, zoned, and built for the ambitions and lifestyle of the American working and middle-class, Rojas explains that Latinos bring into America’s neighborhoods their own view of land, people, and place.[1] Rojas calls this the “Latino vernacular.” This vernacular is not only a synthesis of cultural styles from a variety of home countries, but a visual expression of the very values and experiences of both the individual and the immigrant community as a whole.[2] Latino vernacular is not merely an architectural distinction[3], as seen in the Wicker Park patio I ran past each morning this summer. Architecturally, the build of this home and space was like every other house on its block. However, the resident chose to utilize the space in a distinct way, implementing an entirely different placemaking method than his neighbors, setting his patio apart from the remainder of the street.

The front porch of a home provides the division of the public and private spheres, keeping the home distinct from the public space, the street, on which it resides. Rojas explains that the typical American home is constructed in a linear progression of the public to the private: street to porch, living room to kitchen, and then the backyard.[4] Many American communities may remember a day when the front porch was utilized more frequently as a place of interaction: greeting neighbors, chatting with a date before saying goodnight, or sharing a piece of pie with a friend who stopped in. While graced with beautiful planters, lights, and the occasional bike, today the rocking chairs on the porches in my neighborhood sit empty, while lights flicker from the show streaming in the living room or smoke rises from the grill out back. This transitional space, the front porch, remains un-utilized.

Not so in Latino urbanism. Coming from cultures which operate around a plaza, Hispanic communities value and utilize the front porch and space in front of a home, creating a place where the public and private collide.[5] The porch becomes a happening place, where the resident interacts and engages with the community. Rojas explains: “The front porch is where Latinos become civic-minded and bond with their neighbors.”[6] It is bringing the warmth and care of home to the community in which one lives. Lynda Lopez, Chicago resident and reporter for StreetsBlog Chicago has seen the impact of Latino placemaking in her own Chicago neighborhood, Little Village. In her June 18th post entitled, “How Latinx Chicagoans Remake Public Space,” she shares how the corners and stoops of Little Village remind her of sitting in front of her grandmother’s house in Michoacán, Mexico. While walking through her neighborhood, Lopez sees the concept Rojas calls “social cohesion” at play.[7] The community, in extending their homes to the front of the house, take increasing ownership of the streets and corners as well. The household, now extended forward into public space by the utilization of the front porch, is thrust into consistent, intentional, and caring interactions with the community.

The interaction of the public and private which Rojas defines in Latino urbanism provides a challenge to the church, offering a means for us to grow in our understanding and living out of the gospel. The gospel itself exemplifies the collision of the public and private. Through the incarnation of Jesus Christ, the sacredness of the Godhead became accessible to the community of mankind. In Ephesians, this access to the trinitarian relationship is directly related to becoming a part of the household of God.[8] Could the current trend towards biblical hospitality be the church realizing its need to be and act as the spiritual home it truly is? If so, our porch needs a little Latin placemaking.

Welcoming the outsider into the sacredness of the home can be a challenge for individuals and communities of any culture. But the church can’t take a pass on this one. Christ has mandated a going forth of believers and a welcoming in to those who are outside the family of God. After spending this summer observing the porches of many Chicago homes, I realized the church is, or at least should be like, the Latino front porch. This is what we ontologically are in Christ—a collision of divinity with sinful humanity. We are the welcoming porch, a bit out of place on our block, offering a long talk and glass of water rather than gathering in the back yard by ourselves with the BBQ. When we operate this way, we become consistently and intentionally committed to our communities, civic minded—aware of its needs—but spiritually minded too, always desiring to welcome our neighbors in for a full meal around the table of God.

As National Hispanic Heritage Month begins this week, my thoughts are driven to the many ways my Latino and Hispanic brothers and sisters have challenged by thinking with fresh perspectives of the church and the gospel. As ministry leaders and faithful Christians, let us celebrate the beauty of theology set within our various cultural expressions. As a white ministry leader, it is my desire to grow personally as I partner with my Latino family in the sharing of the gospel, implementing their unique strengths alongside my own, so that the fullest picture of the Body of Christ can be expressed in our communities.

About Emily C. Alexander

A first generation college graduate of a rural working class family, Emily C. Alexander recently completed her undergraduate degree in Ministry to Women at the Moody Bible Institute. Emily lives in Chicago where she enjoys long walks admiring architecture and pondering theological and sociological issues. Her hope is to impact the lives of women and the flourishing of the church through thoughtful theological engagement.

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Footnotes

[1] http://norcalapa.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Latino-vernacular-is-transforming-American-streets.pdf

[2] Rojas 28

[3] Rojas 28

[4] Rojas 28

[5] https://www.pps.org/article/front-porch-placemaking-the-latino-connection-to-the-street

[6] https://www.pps.org/article/front-porch-placemaking-the-latino-connection-to-the-street

[7] https://chi.streetsblog.org/2019/06/18/considering-latino-perspectives-on-public-space-in-chicago/

[8] Ephesians 2.16-22

Beyond Racial Binary Pt. 2

Miles Morales. That’s the name of the Spider-man at the center of the newly released Spider-man: Into the Spider-verse. He is half African American, half Puerto Rican, and the first bi-racial superhero to hit the big-screen. As a true coming-of-age story, the movie portrays Miles ascending to the idea that he too can be spider-man. This is the main theme of the film, and it’s summarized in a mid-credit title card that reads: “That person who helps others simply because it should or must be done, and because it is the right thing to do, is indeed without a doubt, a real superhero” (Stan Lee). The Spider-verse, with its many spider-people, is a forward-thinking contribution to the race conversation, one that subtly adopts a thicker identity than the binary (i.e. black/white) so common to the discussion. Miles is more than a black character. Spider-man is more than a white Peter Parker. The super-hero behind the mask is recast as a Criollo, a product of a complex racial world.

Original Artwork/Christian Perez

After reading our previous article on the racial binary, a reader sent me the following critique (I’ve shared it in full because it is the question at the center of this second article):

“This article proved that historical events demand a more nuanced view. Now you should take it further and explain how [a tri-racial history] will not only account for what actually happened in America but what that historical accuracy will do for discussions about race in America. So yes, the truncated [binary] starting place doesn’t account for the history of the west and south, but how will the new proposal change the discussions about our racialized history?”

Essentially, I believe this reader is asking for points of application, for the “what now” that follows from a tri-racial American identity and history. My goal is to answer his question by building from the same two points that I proposed in the original post. A tri-racial dialog on race is one that is rooted in a thick history of non-innocence and the Criollo/Mestizo Identity, and together these provide a base for reconciliation and unity. Miles Morales will serve as a contemporary case study, an example of how a history of non-innocence and a Criollo identity can shape us all for the better. While Miles serves as the social example, I intend to draw points of connection between these ideas and the Bible when appropriate. In making these connections, my aim is to show that the Church is uniquely equipped, when guided by Latino/a brothers and sisters, to be the ambassador of reconciliation in a racialized America.

A History of Non-innocence[1]

In the previous article, I briefly covered a history of racial oppression and violence in the west coast. By recounting this history, I demonstrated that the Hispanic experience in America includes acts of racism dating back further than the history used to support a racial binary. However, this more nuanced historical account is not meant to be used to lay claim on land once stolen by Americans. That is not my goal.  On the contrary, the Hispanic social identity does not permit me, nor my people, the gift of innocence when it comes to ownership claims on the land. Remember, the means by which these lands became Spanish was conquest and encomienda (see previous post), practices no more honorable than those used by Americans years later.

Hispanics are the mixed products of Spanish conquistadors and indigenous people. Our inheritance is always a mix passed down from guilty ancestors. As Justo Gonzalez remarks,

Our Spanish ancestors took the lands of our [Native] ancestors. Some of our [Native] ancestors practiced human sacrifice and cannibalism. Some of our Spanish forefathers raped our [Native] foremothers. Some of our [Native] foremothers betrayed their people in favor of the invaders. It is not a pretty story. But it is more real than the story that white settlers came to this land with pure motivations, and that any abuse of inhabitants was the exception rather than the rule. It is also a story resulting in a painful identity.[2]

A Criollo history, a mixed, tri-part history that accounts for the crimes of our ancestors and acknowledges that our inheritance is the result “not merely of hard labor, daring enterprise, and rugged individualism but also of theft” can cultivate the empathy necessary to pursue justice together.[3] This is the great gift and therefore the great responsibility of a Hispanic heritage: to challenge the myth of innocence in the American past.

Miles and his Heritage (Spoiler Alert)

One of the tensions of the Spider-verse movie is the relationship between Miles and the male figures in his family. His father, Jefferson, is a hard-nosed police officer who lives on clear cut lines of right and wrong and pushes Miles to transcend the mire of life in Brooklyn. In a powerful moment between father and son, Miles questions why he must go to the new magnet school instead of being in a traditional public school “with the people.” Jefferson’s answer is firm: He wants something better for Miles; he doesn’t want Miles to become his uncle. To this, Miles responds, “What’s wrong with uncle Aaron?”

Miles admires his uncle Aaron, who is a clear foil of Jefferson. The big reveal of the film is that Aaron is The Prowler, a murderous villain who works for the Kingpin. During a tragic scene following the revelation of Aaron’s alter-ego, Miles is encouraged by his dying uncle to do better, to be better, because he is “on his way” to greatness. Miles’s own family is complicit in the crimes, his uncle is caught up in the wrongs, yet he drives Miles to transcend as Jefferson had hoped. Miles’s hero was also a villain. This is part of his complex inheritance. This history of non-innocence undergirds Miles’s embrace of his call to be Spider-man. In the end, we see Miles paint a tribute to his uncle in the police station with his father, a beautiful act of remembrance.

A History of Non-innocence and the Church

The way we capture and relate history affects the way we perceive the world and the Bible. This is one of the basic claims of Justo Gonzalez’s book, Mañana: Christian Theology from a Hispanic Perspective. Justo demonstrates that Bible stories are not politically and socially neutral, and he convincingly argues that American retellings of biblical stories tend to sterilize them and remove these aspects. However, a slow examination of the Older and Newer Testament would prove to be quite contrary to this mostly innocent account of the stories. The history of Israel is a dark heritage which includes rape, the murder of the innocent, and the oppression of the poor. The heroes of the Old Testament are often deceitful and out for their own gain. The disciples in the New Testament are not much of an improvement. As Justo writes,

In short, biblical history is a history beyond innocence. Its only real heroes are the God of history and history itself, which somehow continues moving forward even in spite of the failure of its great protagonists. Since this is also the nature of Hispanic history, it may well be that on this score we have a hermeneutical advantage over those whose history is still at the level of guilty innocence, and who therefore must read Scripture in the same way in which they read their own history.[4]

Justo concludes his remarks with a clear challenge to read the Bible as it is intended, as a record of an entirely guilty humanity in need of God’s grace. This reading of Scripture and act of responsible remembrance, argues Justo, leads to right action in the present. Again, if we are all ladrones (thieves), we are readier to empathize and challenge injustice together.

A Criollo/Mestizo Identity

I introduced the criollo/mestizo identity in the previous article. These words have been given theological significance as well. Jose Vasconcelos (a Mexican writer, philosopher and politician) was the first to take the term mestizo and redeem it as a positive term. In his early writings, Vasconcelos argued that America could be the place where La Raza Cosmica (The Cosmic race) could develop. He saw great potential for unity in the Hispanic identity because it transcends designation by skin color. Many Hispanic theologians since have followed his line of reasoning to portray the Church as a kind of mestizo group.

Virgilio Elizondo, for instance, argued similarly in The Future is Mestizo.[5] Much of his work focuses on the theological significance of the mestizo/a and the process of mestizaje, which defines the mixing of the three bloodlines (African, European, and Native) not only biologically but culturally and religiously as well. These theologians reflect deeply on their ethnic-social identity, but they also reveal a key observation about God’s people throughout history. From their very origin, the people of God were a mestizo (mixed) group. A brief review of the biblical story reinforces this identity.

When the Lord first redeemed Israel from slavery in Egypt, the Bible tells us that “a mixed multitude also went with them” (Exod. 12:38). Moses married a black woman, though he was criticized for it (Num. 12). When Israel crossed the Jordan river into the promised land, Rahab, a prostitute, helped Israel in their conquest of Jericho. She would marry into Israel, and later genealogies reveal that she is a foremother of Jesus (Matt. 1:5). Ruth, a moabite, is another foremother of Jesus. The Bible tells us that one of the earliest converts to Christianity was an Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8:28-40). The church where the term Christian was first used was a mixed church led by a group that included a black teacher named Simeon (Acts 13:1). The early church included Jew and gentile alike, and the startling conclusion of the Bible foretells that God will be praised by a multitude “from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages” (Rev. 7:9).

From the beginning, God’s people include a mix of Africans, Europeans, and Israelites as one group. The history is one of non-innocence and the identity is uniquely and profoundly mixed. Mestizaje is the process by which Hispanics became one group consisting of brown, white, and black people. One of my Abuela’s favorite reminders is that you cannot identify a Puerto Rican by the color of their skin. Indeed, my family includes relatives of white skin with blue eyes and others with dark skin and curly hair. Despite these physical differences, we are united in one culture, one spirit, and one family. Is this not what Paul envisions in Ephesians chapter 4 when he challenges the church to walk worthy of their call by living in profound union?

Anglo Americans already have a sense of this mixed identity and union. They typically do not self-identify as German, English, French, Dutch, etc. Instead, the identity is now subsumed in the racial category: white. Mestizaje, however, moves beyond skin color and is rooted in more nuanced history; it produces a social group readier to welcome the other with genuine hospitality.

Conclusion

Miles Morales is a criollo Spider-man deeply committed to his family. When he faces the villain of the film, it is his connection to his family that lifts him to the task of defeating evil. He wins the fight by remembering his father’s words and using his uncle’s move. Miles is black, he is Rican, and he’s Spider-man. His empathy and desire for justice are rooted in his heritage and the complexity of his identity. Spider-man: Into the Spider-verse was an excellent display of the gift of mestizaje. Like Miles, the Church can learn from their brown family members to remember responsibly and act justly in the world. This is the great gift and great responsibility inherited from the Hispanic identity and the Latino/a church.

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Footnotes

[1] Credit must be given to Justo L. Gonzalez for this title and framework for history. His thoughts on history shaped what I propose in this section, and I recommend readers consider his book Mañana: Christian Theology from a Hispanic Perspective.

[2] Justo L. González, Mañana: Christian Theology from a Hispanic Perspective, Reprint edition edition (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1990), 40.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid., 77.

[5] I suggest reading Nestor Medina's book called Mestizaje: ReMapping Race, Culture, and Faith in Latina/o Catholicism as a primer. Nestor dedicates an entire section of the book to expounding and critically reviewing the ideas of Elizondo.

Beyond Racial Binary

I recently attended a panel discussion on race, diversity, and the city. The panel included a prominent African American church leader, a Canadian social scientist, a white professor of urban studies and politics, two pastors working in a Hispanic context (one Hispanic, the other white), and an Asian American pastor. In all, the group represented a fascinating intersection of theology, policy, and ministry. During the discussion, the moderator addressed the Hispanic and Asian pastor and said, “Often these discussions about race and diversity are framed as racial binaries (black/white). How do you think the conversation should be reframed? What do you think about the black/white binary?”

Much to my surprise, the two pastors were comfortable with race discussions as is. In fact, one of them said, “I think blackness and whiteness are the two archetypes for us to understand race. We can’t understand Asian-ness or the Latino-type without first understanding these two primary types. Black and White should frame and help us make sense of the other experiences.” I suspect that many in the audience found his answer profound and insightful, but I think there are several problems with this line of thinking. The black/white binary does not sufficiently account for the experiences of either group – Latino/a or Asian – and reflects a certain set of historical biases that need to be reconsidered.

I am asking the question again and attempting an answer from my Latino perspective. I do not pretend to know the Asian experience sufficiently enough to address it, but I believe my answer will help reframe the discussion such that someone more able than I can fill in the Asian perspective where I cannot. There are two basic lines of thinking that I use to address the question and introduce a new way of discussing race in the city. The first will be an analysis of Puerto Rican heritage as represented in public artwork. The second will be a brief history of the United States that will focus on events in the 1800s. When appropriate, I will suggest places where the Asian perspective is likely lacking and can be purposely inserted.

La Fuente de la Herencia

There is a small promenade in San Juan, Puerto Rico called “Paseo de la Princesa.” This promenade includes two public art installations worth considering as we think through race in America. Both are sculptures in a garden called La Fuente de la Herencia (The Fountain of Inheritance) that is tucked away in the ancient walls of San Juan. The fountain includes five sculptures representing the heritage of Puerto Rico: 1) the inheritance of the faith, 2) the inheritance of liberty, 3) the blood inheritance, 4) the social inheritance, and 5) the cultural inheritance (i.e. the inheritance of the arts). I want to focus on the third and fourth inheritance depicted by this collection of sculptures because they nudge the conversation from binary to tri-part.

The Blood Inheritance

According to the description of the garden, this sculpture represents the “integration of the three principle races of America, symbolized by Ponce De Leon, Chief Agüeybana’s sister, and a black African slave who later makes his ethne-cultural contribution to the new world.”[1] In 1508, Juan Ponce De Leon established the first settlement on the Island of Puerto Rico and named it Caparra. This depiction of him shows him taking the princess of the indigenous Taino tribe as the spoils of battle. The description of the piece reminds us that Spaniards later brought African slaves to the Island to help with the search for gold. The three characters suggest that the heritage of the America’s includes three bloodlines, not two. We cannot make sense of race in America by using two categories. If we do, we fail to acknowledge the indigenous people whose bastard children are known today as Hispanics. This points directly, as Ponce De Leon does in this picture, to a new social reality.

The Social Inheritance

Directly across from Juan Ponce De Leon and the bloodline sculpture is this piece. Here we have three other significant figures to consider. According to the descriptions on the plaque this sculpture depicts “the ibero-american priestess as symbolic mother of the new world and the Spanish conquistador, who together present their son, El Criollo, to the world.”[2] El Criollo is the Hispanic son, the mixed product of indigenous people and Spanish colonizers.[3] Over a hundred years before the arrival of English immigrants to America, the criollo children of the Spanish conquest where forming into a new ethnic-social group. The social situation in America has since been at least about the interaction, just or unjust, between these three races.

I suspect that part of the reason conversations about race in America fail to move from binary to tri-part, including Native Americans and Hispanics, is a truncated history that focuses too much on the eastern region of the United States. Instead, I’d like to propose a few key events that are regularly forgotten as we engage in dialog.

The East Coast Bias

I’m not going to provide a very long history, and it is important to acknowledge that the panel discussion I attended may not reflect the kind of thinking present everywhere in the city and church. However, for those who do think issues of race and reconciliation are essentially black/white problems first before considering everyone else, I propose a different narrative. In my experience, those who think in the way expressed by the pastor-panelist have the events of African slavery, the civil war, reconstruction, and the civil rights movement in mind. They are rightly trying to confront longstanding systems of black oppression and the traumatic social impact of these systems today. I do not want to diminish the importance of that element of the discussion. However, the civil war, for instance, only accounts for 11 states in the southeast and 20 states mostly in the northeast part of the U.S. My point is that the whole US, including that 3rd bloodline, is not accounted for in the story of the civil war. To capture the fullness necessary to have a good discussion on race reconciliation, we must go a little further back in history and work out the situation in the west.

Encomiendas - The Spanish Slavery System

Early in the 1500s Queen Isabella established a system of encomiendas in which Native Americans were grouped together and “entrusted” to a Spaniard colonizer to be “civilized” and “Christianized” in exchange for free labor. While the native people were not technically enslaved, the conditions were often indistinguishable from slavery as we know it. In 1510, Dominican friar Antonio de Montesinos arrived as one of the first colonial citizens to la Republica Dominicana. He preached vehemently against encomiendas, and in 1512 the system was changed though not abolished. Other priests followed. For instance, Bartolome de Las Casas was an avid defender of native people. In 1515, de Las Casas gave up his Native American slaves and chose to denounce the evils being committed in the colonies. These two priests reveal that the apparently monolithic Roman Catholic Church in Latin America really has always been two churches from the very beginning.[4] One of the “two” Roman Catholic churches was an arm of the Spanish power and an aid in the conquest, colonization, and oppression of the Americas (1519-1532). The second, however, repeatedly stood with the oppressed and decried the abuse of power. This later version of the church became deeply associated with the ethos of the Mexican people.

Remembering Mexico

By 1819, Mexico was a significant portion of New Spain. The population growth of the colonies led to dispersal over greater distances. Here is a map reflecting the area of Mexico that is now the Western United States:

CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=937608 [5]

Again, there are a few historical events worth noting briefly. First, Mexico gained its independence from Spain in 1821. Due to the war for liberty, the Northern lands of Mexico were severely underpopulated. Therefore, the government enacted the General Law of Colonization. Under this law, white Americans were given right to migrate into Texas and other lands. In 1830, Mexico halts further immigration because white settlers began to outnumber Mexican citizens. Tensions began because white immigrants refused to honor Mexico’s anti-slavery laws. This is where I believe the connection with the second Roman Catholic Church was perceived as a problem for protestant white immigrants. Tensions reached their height in 1836, when Texas became an independent nation, and in 1846 the Mexican-American war began.

The war ended tragically for Mexico. In 1848, Mexico and the US signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, and Mexico relinquished all or parts of their entire northern territories. With the signing of this treaty, 100,000 Mexican citizens became strangers in their own land. Like their parents in the 1500s, Mexicans were displaced, removed, and rejected as “greasers.” Remembering this history, along with the social identity of Hispanics, would help us resist the tendency to discuss issues of race in black/white binary terms. The Mexican-American war precedes the civil war and did much to increase the tension regarding black slavery in America. My point is that these issues are interrelated and ignoring them only reduces our ability to reconcile as one people.

Conclusion

The black/white binary isn’t a helpful way of thinking about race in America because it does not account for the displacement of ibero-americans and it reflects a historical bias for the eastern narrative of the United States. I said I would at least identify where I think the Asian voice may have important contributions to make, and I want to conclude there. If we recall, it was in the west where Japanese interment camps were most prevalent during WWII. Prior to the war, California was the scene of severe violence against Filipino migrant contract workers during the Watsonville Riots of 1930. It wasn’t until 2011 that CA publicly apologized for these hate acts. I suspect more must be said regarding the experiences of Asian Americans in the west and no doubt broadly in the US. This, however, may be a starting point. We have to know our stories (intentionally plural) if we are ever going to make something different of our divided city.

Recently, there is significant discussion and tense debate regarding the migrant caravan from South America. Our president has unabashedly referred to it as “an invasion.” In response, I heard a Native American brother plead with a group of evangelicals, saying, “I have some cousins on the way back home. When they get here, I hope you’ll treat them kindly.” Indeed, I hope we remember that they once received white immigrants into the very lands we are now accusing them of invading.

The plaque at the center of La Fuente de La Herencia says that the base of the fountain, where the waters meet, represents the unification of the Americas in the grand cause and inheritance of universal man. The fount elevating from the base and shooting water symbolizes “the hope for a better world, founded on the values of our grand inheritance and the faith in the eternal life that is the aspiration of all mankind.”[6] Written around the edge of the fountains base is this prophetic utterance:

I will run like the rivers to the heart of the world

to nourish your inheritance

With my faith, my blood, my intellect, and my ancestral origin

In the name of God almighty I took these lands

To later dedicate them to the divine principle

That all men are created equal

Under the shelter of an Indian Chief, a European, and an African who gave their blood

To you. I give you the most noble of the old and new world

The future awaits your key for its destiny[7]

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Footnotes

[1] My trans.

[2] My trans.

[3] Another common word for a mixed person of Spanish and Native American descent is Mestizo.

[4] Justo L. González, Mañana: Christian Theology from a Hispanic Perspective, Reprint edition edition (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1990), 56.

[5] “Adams–Onís Treaty,” Wikipedia, October 27, 2018, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Adams%E2%80%93On%C3%ADs_Treaty&oldid=866029907.

[6] My trans.

[7] Ibid.