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| 121 8 “La Virgen, She Watches over Us” What Cholos and Cholas Can Teach Us about Researching and Writing about Religion Kristy Nabhan-Warren We sat under some mesquite trees as he caressed the black and white tattoo of the Virgin of Guadalupe etched on his right forearm. A crochet rosary in green and red hung around his neck, next to the gold medallion of the Virgin of Guadalupe that his abuelita, his grandmother, gave him when he was a little boy. Mark, a member of the South Phoenix gang Wetback Power (WBP), narrated his life story; he spoke passionately about his love for “la Virgen de Guadalupe,” his “familia,” and his “nueva familia,” his gang peers. He talked about his faith, shooting rival gang members to protect himself and his “homies,” and his belief that la Virgen protected him at all times. In good times and bad, Mark emphasized that it was la Virgen who was “there for me” when others failed him. He was a devout Catholic whose faith was strong. This essay focuses on what scholars of religion can learn about the religious lives of young adults and about religion, more broadly speaking, from the perspectives of Mexican American male and female gang members. In the 1990s, while working with cholos and cholas, I reconsidered the categories I had taken for granted in the study of religion. Pervasive notions of “good” and “bad” religion dominate academic discourse, no matter how much we hope to move beyond such dichotomizations.1 These gang members with whom I worked challenged my assumptions about what “religion” is and what constitutes a “religious” person. The gang members I interviewed constructed modes of conduct and comportment that reflected their geographic, socioeconomic , and ethnic realities. Once I shelved preconceived notions I had of religion (good/bad, real/unreal) and similar dichotomizations of youth (good/ bad, normal/deviant), I was drawn into the urban religious phenomena I was studying. Religion walked in the streets, talked, yelled, shot bullets, and was worn on bodies and the cars that carried those bodies.2 122 | Kristy Nabhan-Warren Gang members’ lives were the focus of my research in the early 1990s and my entryway into Catholicism in the barrios of South Phoenix. Cholas with teardrop tattoos and cholos with tattoos of the Virgin of Guadalupe walked the streets as newspaper articles on gang violence proliferated and outreach programs struggled to reach them. Gang members in South Phoenix invented religious rituals and symbols that were born out of dispossession and an intense yearning for love and acceptance. Ritualization of violence and desire was a “strategic way of acting.”3 Religious symbols took on new meaning in the barrio across generations—Christ and Mary were alive and walked with the men, women, and children who lived there.4 Cholos and cholas were not the “deviant” or unredeemable youth they were often portrayed as in the media.5 I found these young adults to be searching for answers to their very real problems and turning to their Catholic faith, to their religious icons, and to each other for guidance and support. In some ways they were unconventional in their beliefs yet in other ways they were conventional. They attended mass frequently, alone or with family members, looked forward to receiving Eucharist, and always carried their rosaries with them. But they also created forms of religiosity that spoke to and addressed their needs—much like other American Christian teens who move beyond their parents by adding their own creative touches to their faith. While evangelical Christian teens participated in the 1990s “What Would Jesus Do?” wristband craze, Mexican American Catholic cholos and cholas internalized the cultural religiosity of their grandparents and parents. Anglo American Christian youth often chose to wear Jesus on their bodies in various forms. In contrast, gang members tended to wear and carry images of the Virgin of Guadalupe, signifying her importance in their lives. Street processions of the Virgen de Guadalupe, murals that depicted Christ’s and Mary’s suffering and agony, and tattoos on the bodies of barrio residents reflect a “visual piety” that stands as a “collective representation of personal relationships or community.”6 For Mexican American Catholics in Phoenix’s south side, Christ and the Virgin of Guadalupe live alongside them. They have grown up hearing stories about the “Mexican National Virgin,” and they relate to her in ways that are culturally consistent with their religious genealogy.7 Their faith in the salvific power of...

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