Borderlands Saints: Secular Sanctity in Chicano/a and Mexican Culture

Desirée A. Martín

Published by Rutgers University Press 2013

Borderlands Saints

Secular Sanctity in Chicano/a and Mexican Culture

Desirée A. Martín

In the series Latinidad: Transnational Cultures in the

https://doi.org/10.36019/9780813562353

Overview
Contents

About this book

Winner of the 2014 Latina/o Studies Section - LASA Outstanding Book Award

In Borderlands Saints, Desirée A. Martín examines the rise and fall of popular saints and saint-like figures in the borderlands of the United States and Mexico. Focusing specifically on Teresa Urrea (La Santa de Cabora), Pancho Villa, César Chávez, Subcomandante Marcos, and Santa Muerte, she traces the intersections of these figures, their devotees, artistic representations, and dominant institutions with an eye for the ways in which such unofficial saints mirror traditional spiritual practices and serve specific cultural needs.

Popular spirituality of this kind engages the use and exchange of relics, faith healing, pilgrimages, and spirit possession, exemplifying the contradictions between high and popular culture, human and divine, and secular and sacred. Martín focuses upon a wide range of Mexican and Chicano/a cultural works drawn from the nineteenth century to the present, covering such diverse genres as the novel, the communiqué, drama, the essay or crónica, film, and contemporary digital media. She argues that spiritual practice is often represented as narrative, while narrative—whether literary, historical, visual, or oral—may modify or even function as devotional practice.

Author / Editor information

DESIRÉE A. MARTÍN is an assistant professor of English at the University of California, Davis.

Reviews

"Through Martín’s incisive critical textual analysis we come to see the borderlands—and the exchange there between devotees and saints—as an important site for the performance of secular sanctity. Borderlands Saints is an invaluable contribution to border studies."

— Laura G. Gutiérrez, author of Performing Mexicanidad: Vendidas y Cabareteras on the Transnational Stage

"Addressing religion, spirituality and sanctity in Chicana/o culture, Borderlands Saints makesa significant contribution to a burgeoning area that demands critical attention."

— Carl Gutiérrez-Jones, University of California, Santa Barbara

"Borderland Saints offers compelling portraits of popular and secular saints who exist unapologetically outside the realm of official church teaching."

— Latino Studies

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Introduction: The Secular Sanctity of Borderlands Saints Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1. Saint of Contradiction: Teresa Urrea, La Santa de Cabora Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	32
2. The Remains of Pancho Villa Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	66
3. Canonizing César Chávez Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	105
4. “Todos Somos Santos”: Subcomandante Marcos and the EZLN Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	142
5. Illegal Marginalizations: La Santísima Muerte Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	182
Conclusion: Narrative Devotion Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	210
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	221
Works Cited Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	235
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	245
About the Author Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	255

Language: English
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 296
Illustrations
- Other: 5 illustrations

eBook

Published: December 19, 2013
ISBN: 9780813562353