Borderlands Saints: Secular Sanctity in Chicano/a and Mexican Culture

Notes

221 notes Introduction: The Secular Sanctity of Borderlands Saints 1. Unless otherwise indicated, all translations are my own. 2. See Gloria Anzaldúa, Borderlands/La Frontera; James F. Hopgood, The Making of Saints: Contesting Sacred Ground; and Luis D. León, La Llorona’s Children: Religion, Life, and Death in the US-Mexican Borderlands. 3. The military also destroyed several Santa Muerte shrines in Tijuana at the same time. 4. It is significant that the protests occurred during Holy Week in front of the Mexico City Metropolitan Cathedral, reflecting the clash between orthodox religion and popular belief evoked by the cult to Santa Muerte. The Metropolitan Cathedral is not only the seat of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Mexico, it is also a symbol of Mexican national identity. The cathedral is a Spanish colonial structure built atop the sacred ground of the Aztec city of Tenochtitlán in the present-day Zócalo (main square) of Mexico City, the symbolic center of the independent mestizo nation. 5. Regarding the adjective Chicano/a or Chicana/o: In (Chicano or Chicana) cultural criticism , these forms are often favored because they shift the focus away from the masculine identified Chicano, which, like Mexicano or other similar adjectives in Spanish, can be applied to a group regardless of whether there are women in it or not. In other words, a group of five Mexican women and one Mexican man would historically still be called Mexicano. This explains the preference in feminist circles for the feminine form Chicana. These usages have political significance in the Chicano context. Many departments or conferences of Chicano Studies are now called “Chicana/Chicano Studies,” for example, frequently with the feminine form first, for this reason. This double form becomes somewhat confusing when applied to English gender-neutral nouns such as text or community. In this work, I have kept the dual term Chicano/a when referring to people (who are clearly gendered) or identities, but for general English nouns with no gender I have most often gone with the traditional Chicano, so as not to burden the text with extraneous gender issues. 6. For more on the early Christian cult of the saints, see Peter Brown, The Cult of the Saints; Richard Kieckhefer and George D. Bond, Sainthood: Its Manifestations in World Religions; Kenneth L. Woodward, The Making of Saints. 7. Kieckhefer argues: “Through the 1960s most days of the year were special feast days of saints. . . . Liturgical changes in 1969 included the deletion from the calendar of 52 saints whose very existence was questioned. . . . Although some recent saints were added, the net effect was to diminish attention given to the saints” (Kieckhefer and Bond 9). 8. Aphorisms that draw upon sanctity are especially plentiful in Mexican Spanish, for example , Ni tanto que queme al santo, ni tanto que no lo alumbre (Not so much that it burns the saint, or so little that it does not shed a light on him; meaning, “Don’t deal in extremes”), and Se quedó para vestir santos (She or he was left behind to dress the saints; meaning, “She or he was left on the shelf”). 222 notes to Pages 15–34 9. El Niño Fidencio, born José Fidencio de Jesús Síntora Constantino (1898–1938), is a popular Mexican folk saint who is renowned as a curandero or faith healer. He believed that he received the gift for spiritual healing directly from Jesus, who appeared to him in visions. Fidencio was said to hold “distinctive personal characteristics” such as a “falsetto voice, boyish demeanor, and lack of secondary male sexual attributes,” which contributed to his sanctity and earned him the nickname “El Niño” (Murray 107–111). Fidencio was linked to spiritism, and his cult manifests today through trance mediums (materias) who “receive his spirit and continue his healing ministry,” as well as through pilgrimages to Espinazo, Nuevo León, where his spiritual ministry is based (Murray 113). 10. One of the Virgin of Guadalupe’s monikers is La Virgen Morena (The dark-skinned virgin ). See Sandra Cisneros, “Guadalupe the Sex Goddess,” and León, who cites an East Los Angeles woman named Señora de la Cruz who feels a particular affinity with Guadalupe because “She looks like me” (León, La Llorona’s 115). 11. Cabrona is a Mexican swear and/or informal slang word (the feminine form of cabrón). It has many different meanings and is not directly translatable, though it connotes “cuckold.” In Mexico...