Latino Pentecostal Identity: Evangelical Faith, Self, and Society (review)

20ogBook Reviews27g four is somewhat reminiscent of Gabriela F. Arredondo's 2008 work Mexican Chicago : Race, Identity, and Nation, 191 6-39 (University ofIllinois Press) while Carmen Teresa Whalen makes yet another worthwhile contribution in chapter five with a careful review of Puerto Rican labor experiences in New York City. Chapter six discusses Latina partnerships in the pursuit of electoral participation and incorporation into the Washington state political system. Chapter seven chronicles the footsteps of the Chicana Movement as it crosses into Mexico City. Finally, chapter eight not only delves into Puerto Rican identity formation based on phenotype, religion, education, and class, but does so through the lens of Virginia Sánchez Korrol, one of the first Latinas to earn a Ph.D. in history. This collective work shows scholars die value ofexploring both a female analysis-centered approach as well as a balanced gender line of historical inquiry when writing about our shared history. For all interested in Latino/a Studies, Gender Studies, Chicano/a and Puerto Rican working class history, immigration patterns, and American ethnic history in general, this book is essential. Public and academic libraries should also shelve a copy because it places the multifaceted experiences of Latinas in a better perspective. Rutgers UniversityDarius V. Echeverría lMtino Pentecostal Identity: Evangelical Faith, Self, and Society. By Arlene SánchezWalsh . (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003. Pp. 255. Illustrations, maps, appendix, notes, bibliography, index. ISBN 9780231127325, $59.50 cloth; ISBN 9780231127332, $28.00 paper.) Today, nearly five million Latinos in the United States self-identify as part of the Pentecostal/Charismatic movement. Her tide notwithstanding, Arlene Sánchez -Walsh tackles a very specific component of this growing movement: Mexican -American Pentecostalism in Southern California. Combining historical and ethnographic methodologies, Sánchez-Walsh offers a history of Latino Pentecostalism in the region along widi carefully nuanced portrayals ofsome of the group's contemporary manifestations. In short, readers more concerned with the historical trajectory of the movement will find much of interest, as will those intrigued by the lives of their Latino Pentecostal/Charismatic neighbors down the street. Roughly the first half of Latino Pentecostal Identity focuses on more traditional expressions ofLatino Pentecostalism within the Assemblies ofGod (a large Pentecostal denomination). Sánchez-Walsh traces die careers ofearly twentietii-century Latino Pentecostal leaders such as Alice Luce and Francisco Olazábal in California and Texas, highlighting their frequent run-ins with Anglo-American paternalism. She also dedicates an entire chapter to the history of the Latin American Bible Institute, founded by Luce in 1926 for the training of pastors and ministry workers . Sánchez-Walsh emphasizes the crucial role this school played in policing the boundaries of Latino Pentecostal identity. In part, die school symbolizes SanchezWalsh 's larger claim that "Latino Pentecostals developed a historical memory and religious identity separate from Catholicism" (23). Too often, she insists, scholars 28oSouthwestern Historical QuarterlyOctober characterize Latino Pentecostals simply as recent Catholic converts and miss the ways in which many have long ago "grafted onto the larger evangelical world" and created a self-sufficient culture ( ? ) . Significandy, for Sánchez-Walsh, Pentecostalism "loosed [Latino Pentecostals ] from their ethnic moorings" by placing religious experience—as opposed to ethnicity or nationalism—at die center of an individual's identity (i). While Latino Pentecostals still "subdy view their edinicity as an important component to who diey are," their conversions have brought adherents closer to their AngloAmerican neighbors (i). It is this broader historical process of modernization and ambivalent acculturation diat form the backdrop for Sánchez-Walsh's final three chapters. She first discusses the history of the Victory Outreach missions in Los Angeles and participants' ministry among former convicts and drug addicts. While she offers a valuable summary of the origins and current characteristics of diis group, she also dedicates an entire chapter to the emerging youdi culture among second-generation believers—a youth culture closely in-tune to developments in popular culture as it "sacralizes" forms of secular entertainment and merchandising. Very similar processes characterize La Viña, the final group analyzed by the author. Sánchez-Walsh is at her best when she highlights the various historical tensions inherent in Latino Pentecostalism between tradition and...