BRONX, N.Y. — The Virgin of Guadalupe has long been a powerful religious symbol for Mexicans and Mexican-Americans. Now it also has become an important political symbol in their push for immigration reform.
Lehman Professor of Latin American and Puerto Rican Studies Alyshia Gálvez explores that symbolism in her most recent book, Guadalupe in New York: Devotion and the Struggle for Citizenship Rights Among Mexican Immigrants (New York: NYU Press, 2009). Using ethnographic research to illuminate Catholicism as practiced by Mexicans in New York, she studies how religion and politics intersect in the activities of undocumented Mexicans as they struggle to gain U.S. citizenship.
While conducting research in Northern Chile’s desert region, Professor Gálvez became interested in religious brotherhoods. “These organizations were some of the only groups that continued to assemble throughout the 17 years of military dictatorship,” she says. “I knew there was something deeply empowering and even political about these organizations, even while they told me they were interested only in paying homage to their patron saint.”
In New York City, Professor Gálvez found very similar organizations with an explicitly activist stance, organizations called Guadalupan Committees that are parish-based groups dedicated to the Virgin of Guadalupe and the empowerment of their members. Every December 12, for example, thousands of Mexican immigrants gather at New York City’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral for the mass in honor of Our Lady of Guadalupe’s feast day. They kiss images of the Virgin, wait for a bishop’s blessing—and they also carry signs asking for immigration reform, much like political protestors.
Professor Gálvez adds that it is through Guadalupan devotion that many undocumented immigrants are finding both the will and the vocabulary to demand rights, immigration reform and respect. “I hope that readers will come to have a greater appreciation for the incredible efforts immigrants in our city make to be heard and respected,” she says, “and the urgency of comprehensive immigration reform.”
Contact: Keisha-Gaye Anderson / 718-960-8013