Mexican Americans and the Catholic Church, 1900-1965 ed. by Jay P. Dolan and Gilberto M. Hinojosa (review)

BOOK reviews141 actly what period 'recentiy' refers to," HoUer indicts himself since he uses precisely the same vague phrase within his own, grossly incorrect definition. HUda Neihardt is cited as an authoritative source when, in fact, her writing is Uttle more than an advertisement for her father's book. HoUer thus lends credence to her erroneous claim that the holy-man's daughter left the CathoUc faith after reading Black Elk Speaks. The indisputable truth is that Black Elk's daughter remained a faithful member of the Church until her death. The speculative tenor ofthis book is evident in phrases such as "the fascinating possibiUty exists" and " [his] account provides almost an embarrassment of riches for the interpreter."With no evidence to support him, HoUer states that "Black EUc . . . officiated at the Sun Dance for a number of years. . . ." Just as whimsical is his statement that the holy-man's "creative reconciliation" of two reUgious traditions is "the basis for much Lakota reUgiosity today." HoUer admits that he has "trespassed in many areas [notably anthropology] in which" he has "no formal training," and this is evident throughout the text. For example, he wrongly asserts (1) that people camped without regard to rank (ethnographies state otherwise); (2) that Boasian "salvage ethnography" overlooked the present (a misreading of "historical particularism"); (3) that the Ghost Dance was directly attributable to the Sun Dance's ban (in addition to "faith," a constellation of reasons prompted embrace of the Ghost Dance; Black FJk said it was "to escape the poverty"); (4) that Fools Crow's 1983 Sun Dance ceremony provides adequate material for generalizations regarding its numerous contemporary forms; (5) that American Indian Movement member Mary Crow Dog is an authority on the activities ofAIM'S "goon"opponents (strangely, not putting the pejorative "goon" in quotes); and (6) that Black Elk's involvement with the Ghost Dance in 1890 indicates he would have affirmed the occupation ofWounded Knee in 1973 (speculation gone amok). This book is an example of a growing genre of misguided reflection which is based on the Black EUc of Uterature. It provides some sense of how the Sun Dance has been variously interpreted over the years, and much incorrect or unverifiable speculation about Black FJk, holy-man of the Oglala. Michael F. Steltenkamp, SJ. WheelingJesuit University Mexican Americans and the Catholic Church, 1900-1965. Edited by Jay E Dolan and GUberto M. Hinojosa. [The Notre Dame History of Hispanic CathoUcs in the U.S., Volume One.] (Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press. 1994. Pp. vüi, 352. $2995.) Mexican Americans and the Catholic Church, 1900-1965, is the initial volume of a trilogy of books from University of Notre Dame Press focusing on a 142book reviews broad canvas of issues affecting Latino CathoUcs in the United States. Jay P. Dolan served as senior editor for aU three volumes. Sometimes a few resdess writers, eager to estabUsh a reputation as inteUectual iconoclasts, become so enamored with a hypothesis that they willingly reject contradictory data that might weaken their theoretical framework. Mexican Americans and the Catholic Church, 1900-1965, faUs into that category . The editors,Jay P. Dolan of the University of Notre Dame and GUberto M. Hinojosa of Incarnate Word CoUege (now University), postulated a hypothesis that Uberation theology constituted the only niinistry that could properly address , with sympathy and understanding, the spiritual and temporal needs of Hispanics in the Southwest. The outcome is a compilation of selectively sifted evidence that undergirds the framework of three interconnected essays, each by a different author (Hinojosa, Jeffrey M. Burns, and David A. BadiUo). In the blurred canvas that evolved it became difficult to separate the composition by Hinojosa the writer from the arrangement by Don GUberto the editor. Taking the essays in sequence, in "Mexican-American Faith Communities in Texas and the Southwest," GUberto Hinojosa hastily fashioned an overview of the Hispanic colonial experience. Determined to discard functional terms that Herbert E. Bolton, Carlos E. Castañeda, and other Borderlands historians wove into their monographs, Hinojosa crafted convoluted phrases that obscured the passages more than they clarified, such as "soldier-settler town garrisons" for presidios; "missionary-Indian towns" for missions; and "faith...