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1. A Southern Beginning
- University of Wisconsin Press
- Chapter
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3 1 A South ern Be gin ning The first thing which at tracted [us] . . . to the South Amer ica field was the fact that after the re verses of the war a num ber our coun try men had founded new homes among the Bra zil ian peo ple. It was thought by our selves and oth ers that the so cial and com mer cial re la tions of these set tlers with the na tives of the coun try would greatly fa cil i tate our com mu ni ca tion with the lat ter, and af ford a rare op por tu nity of teach ing the ad her ents of an ap os tate church the ev an gel i cal truths of our own. J. Nash Mor ton and E. E. Lane, let ter from Bra zil, 1868 Peo ple as sume that im mi grants learn about the American ways once they get here. But many of us come to the United States al ready well-versed in cer tain as pects of its cul ture. For in stance, I have been im mersed in south ern cul ture for as long as I can re mem ber. Whether in prose, poetry, or song, my life was or ga nized around old no tions of south ern chiv alry and faith. Ste phen Foster’s songs filled my child hood, long be fore I fath omed the full meas ure of their im port.1 For four gen er a tions, on my mother’s and father’s sides, we were South ern Pres by ter ian to the core—in hymns, creeds, or or tho doxy, and in the way my an ces tors la bored to eke out a liv ing under the ever last ing watch of a rigid Prot es tant ethic. We even in her ited the south ern am biv a lence to ward human suf fer ing caused by ra cial atroc ities. And in town or coun try, we dreamed of that ever last ing home that so haunted south ern writ ers since ante bel lum days. My adult life has been spent in the South as well. Grad u ate ed u ca tion and ac a demic ca reer both un folded in south ern cit ies. My grad u ate de grees were awarded by two south ern in sti tu tions, the South ern Bap tist Theo log i cal Semi nary in Louis ville, Ken tucky, and Van der bilt 4 A Southern Beginning Uni ver sity in Nash ville, Ten nes see. My son was born in Nash ville. South ern uni ver sities have also been home to my pro fes sional life— first the Uni ver sity of Rich mond, then James Mad i son Uni ver sity. After re sid ing in Rich mond, the cap i tal of the Con fed er acy, I re lo cated to the She nan doah Val ley, site of many shrines to the lost cause of the Con fed er acy.2 I teach classes on south ern re li gion, my re search is con ducted in south ern archives, and my early ac ti vism took place in pro gres sive south ern or gan iza tions. None of this would be sur pris ing, had I not been born and raised in Re cife, north ern Bra zil, by very Bra zil ian par ents. In fact, my early ex po sure to American cul ture was dubbed in Por tu guese by American mis sion ar ies. Oh, it was still couched in the ca dences of a south ern faith but pre served in my mother’s tongue. My an ces tors left Eu rope for Bra zil around the 1530s, long be fore south ern mis sion ar ies had reached our shores. We spread through the hin ter lands of Per nam buco and neigh bor ing states, as we made a home for our selves in the New World. Some of us rose to power in the nas cent em pire and later re pub lic. And to this day we may be slightly over rep re sented in civil, mil i tary, and busi ness cir cles in Bra zil. But most of us led hum bler lives. My grand moth ers were seam stresses, one grand father...