Fray Angélico Chávez: Poet, Priest, and Artist

2: Fray Angelico Chavez, Religiousity, and New Mexican Oppositional Historical Narrative

25 chapter two FRAY ANGÉLICO CHÁVEZ, RELIGIOSITY, AND NEW MEXICAN OPPOSITIONAL HISTORICAL NARRATIVE p mario t. garcía University of California, Santa Barbara i Since the 1960s the master historical narrative of the United States has been significantly challenged. This history proposes an America largely based on what can be termed the Anglo-American, Eastern-based ethnic experience. From this perspective, predominantly Protestant peoples of northern European descent are given center stage, especially in the formative years of the colonial era and early years of the republic. Over the last three decades, however, oppositional narratives have surfaced that counter this predominant text with the intent of permitting other historical experiences and voices access into a reconstructed U.S. historical identity stressing not one major ethnic community but multiple ones. These revisions depicting the roles of Native Americans, African Americans, Spanish/ Mexican Americans, as well as Euro-American women and Euro-American working-class peoples are redefining American history. While not eliminating the Anglo-American story, they put it into perspective by recognizing the heterogeneous nature of the American saga. In the Southwest, the challenge to this hegemonic narrative—as well as to its regional counterpart, which similarly extols the contributions of AngloAmericans at the expense of other ethnic groups in the region—has come significantly from the development of Chicano historiography. Since the 1960s with the emergence of the militant and nationalist Chicano movement, historians , most of Chicano descent and identifying with the new stress on ethnic revitalization , have rewritten Southwestern history by calling attention to the major roles played by Mexican Americans in this area. Chicano historians are studying such themes as pre-U.S. communities and cultures, U.S. expansion 26 Historical Recovery and conquest, internal colonialism, Mexican immigration, the establishment of a Southwestern race, class, and gender system, the role of Mexican Americans in civil rights activities, and the importance of multiculturalism in the Southwest. The new Chicano history also provides a new way of thinking about who makes history. It challenges the general notion of historical agency: the idea that primarily Anglo-Americans have made Southwestern history. By seeing Chicanos as people making history and struggling to control their own destinies , this historiography also counters the stereotype of Chicanos as being simply victims of history or, even worse, invisible in history. In fact, through their families, communities, churches, popular religious practices, and organized leadership, Chicanos have influenced the contours of Southwestern history and of American history. While much of this oppositional historical revision has come in the wake of the Chicano movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s, there are important precursors. Chicano historiography has a genealogy that, while not as evident during the intense, politicized years as now, in what I call the post-Chicano movement period, is becoming more appreciated. Moving beyond the early militant ethnic nationalism, which stressed the radical roots of Chicano history , more recent writing recognizes the diversity of the Mexican-American experience in contrast to the previous concept of the ‘‘unified subject.’’ This emphasis on di√erence has led to greater sensitivity and an acknowledgment of pre-movement writers and intellectuals who, in the context of their own historical periods, produced what can be interpreted as critical narratives as a way of countering Southwestern history that excluded, marginalized, or exoticized Spanish/Mexican contributions. ii It is with this background in mind that I wish to interpret the historical writings of Fray Angélico Chávez, one of the most significant but in some ways least acknowledged historical critics in this country. This lack of recognition unfortunately extends to the area of Chicano studies, even though much of his work complements this field. In a writing career spanning seven decades, Chávez, a true renaissance man, produced some twenty-three published books including history, fiction, poetry as well as numerous articles, essays, and reviews. In addition, as a self-taught artist, Chávez created a range of religious and artistic images. Concentrating on Fray Angélico’s historical work, especially on the role of Hispano Catholics, I will suggest that Chávez’s focus on religion was a way of Chapter Two 27 asserting ethnic identity and opposing a growing Anglo-American historical presence that was pushing Chávez’s subjects to the margins. To understand Fray Angélico’s stress on history and religion is to understand the historian...