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214 In recent decades the volume of migration between Mexico and the United States has risen dramatically and transnational movement has emerged as a major force binding the two countries. Although Mexican immigration has been the subject of many statistical studies (see Durand and Massey 1992 and Massey et al. 1994 for reviews), it has been less common to examine it from the viewpoint of the migrants themselves. Nonetheless, a growing literature has sought to portray migration, especially migration without documents, from the perspective of its participants. Investigators have compiled oral histories to reveal the life course dynamics of international migration (Durand 1996; Gamio 1931); analyzed the content of popular Mexican songs about migration and border crossing (Fernandez 1983; Herrera-Sobek 1979); and assembled letters written by undocumented migrants to friends and family at home (Siems 1992). One study gave disposable cameras to immigrants and asked them to take pictures of features of their environments that to them appeared “American” and “Latino” (Massey and Sánchez 2007). Many studies have done participant observation and in-depth interviewing among migrants to appreciate the vagaries of life in the United States through their eyes (Chávez 1991; Durand 2002; González-López 2005; Hondagneu-Sotelo 1994, 2001). A few former undocumented migrants have even published memoirs (de la Torre 1988; Pérez 1991). We add to this growing literature by undertaking a systematic analysis of votive paintings left by U.S. migrants and their families at religious shrines in western Mexico, the traditional heartland for migration to the United States (Durand 1988; Durand, Massey, and Zenteno 2001). Known popularly as retablos, from the Latin Miracles on the Border the votive art of mexican migrants to the united states Jorge Durand and Douglas S. Massey c h a p t e r 1 1  retro-tabula (behind the altar), these paintings are typically prepared or commissioned to offer thanks to a divine image for a miracle or favor received (Giffords 1974). They tell the story of a threatening event from which the subject has been miraculously delivered through divine intervention (Cousin 1982). Here we analyze a newly expanded sample of retablos dealing with Mexico-U.S. migration to update earlier work on this subject (see Durand and Massey 1995, 1997, 2001) and to discern the latest trends in the subjective meaning of migration from the viewpoint of those who actually live it. Origins of Mexican Retablos The word retablo originally referred to decorative or didactic paintings and sculpture placed behind the altar of Catholic churches in the early middle ages (Giffords 1974). Later it came to denote reliquary boxes placed at the rear of the altar (de la Maza 1950); and during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries it was generalized to refer to all painted altar panels and frontal pieces (Cousin 1982; Giffords 1991; Schroeder 1968). In the most literal sense, therefore, retablos include any paintings or objects placed around the altar. The practice of leaving objects to thank or beseech a divine image has ancient roots, of course (Egan 1991). According to abundant archaeological evidence, the ancient Greeks, Romans, Etruscans, Iberians, and Gauls all possessed well-developed votive traditions (Decouflé 1964) in which it was common to acknowledge or pray for the restoration of health by leaving small figures of clay, wax, wood, or stone shaped like hands, eyes, arms, legs, feet, or vital organs. These traditions persisted into the Christian era, but during the fifteenth century these anatomical tokens gave way to a more elaborate display of supplication through painting. Originating in the early Renaissance, the first votive paintings appeared in Italy at the end of the 1400s (Cousin 1982). The practice of votive painting spread rapidly throughout the Mediterranean and then diffused northward into the rest of Europe and ultimately the New World (Egan 1991). Votive practices entered Mexico more with Spanish soldiers than priests. Votive supplication has always been a popular folk tradition rather than a formal religious practice, and Egan (1991) relates that the Conquistador of Mexico himself, upon being bitten by a scorpion, prayed to the Virgin of Guadalupe for deliverance and promised to prepare a votive if he survived this misfortune. Cortez kept his promise and ordered the goldsmiths of Azcapotzalco to fashion a votive containing forty emeralds and two pearls set in a gold box that housed the remnants of the poisonous arthropod that dared to attack the conqueror of Mexico (Valle Arizpe 1941). In transplanting votive traditions to Mexico, of course, the Spanish...

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