Abstract
These lines are from a popular hymn, a variant of the traditional birthday song, “Las mañanitas,” which the Guadalupanas sing as they serenade Our Lady of Guadalupe in front of the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Kansas City. The Guadalupanas are strongly committed to their Virgin Guadalupe and believe that she is their protector. This song and other traditional Guadalupan hymns are examples of the strength of their popular religious expression. This chapter focuses on the Guadalupanas as a group. The chapter’s primary focus is on how they collectively engage and participate in religious celebrations and organizational activities, such as singing hymns, within their religious and social contexts. This collective engagement is la fuerza, the strength of their solidarity and commitment, as they collaborate and continue their mission.
Qué linda está la mañana en que vengo a saludarte. Venimos todos con gusto y placer a felicitarte. Ya viene amaneciendo, ya la luz del día nos dio. Levántate de mañana; mira que ya amaneció.
(Las mañanitas, traditional folk song to Our Lady of Guadalupe)
What a beautiful morning on which we come to greet you. We come with pleasure, joy, and celebration. The morning comes arising, and the sun gives us its daylight. Arise with the morning; see it is already dawn. (Author translation)
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
Ronald Grimes, Beginnings in Ritual Studies, revised ed. (Columbia, South Carolina: University of South Carolina Press, 1995), 24–39.
See also Ronald Grimes, “Ritual Studies: A Comparative Review of Theodore Gaster and Victor Turner.” Religious Studies Review 2, no. 4 (1976): 13–25.
Grimes, 30–36. The explanation of the categories for mapping the ritual field was also informed by a paraphrase of Grimes done by Professor Margaret Mary Kelleher, a hand-out from a lecture in her course, Liturgy and Culture, fall 2000, Catholic University of America. See also Catherine Bell, “Ritual, Change, and Changing Ritual,” Worship 63 (1989): 31–41.
See Victor Turner, “Symbols and Social Experience in Religious Ritual” in Worship and Ritual In Christianity and Other Religions, ed Mariasusai Dhavamony. (Rome: Gregorian University Press, 1974): 3–21. 12 Mary
S. Pardo, Mexican American Women Activists: Identity and Resistance in Two Los Angeles Communities (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1998).
See Richard Santillán, “Midwestern Mexican American Women and the Struggle for Gender Equality: A Historical Overview, 1920s–1960s,” Perspectives in Mexican American Studies 5 (1995), 107. Santill á n describes the mentoring relationships between the elder generations of Mexican American women and their younger counterparts.
Milagros Peña, “Latina Empowerment, Border Realities, and Faith-based Organizations,” in Handbook for the Sociology of Religion, ed. Michele Dillon (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 6.
See also Milagros Peña, Latina Activists Across Borders: Women’s Grassroots Organizing in Mexico and Texas (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2007).
Peña, 8. See also Ana María Díaz-Stevens, “The Saving Grace: The Matriarchal Core of Latino Catholicism,” Latino Studies Journal 4, no. 3 (September 1993): 60–78;
Vicki Ruiz, Cannery Women, Cannery Lives: Mexican American Women, Unionization, and the California Food Processing Industry (Alburquerque, NM: New Mexico University Press, 1987).
Robert Bellah and others, Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life, new ed. with new intro. (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1996), xxx.
Copyright information
© 2013 Theresa L. Torres
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Torres, T.L. (2013). Practicing Belief: The Activities and Rituals of Las Guadalupanas. In: The Paradox of Latina Religious Leadership in the Catholic Church. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137370327_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137370327_6
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-47605-3
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-37032-7
eBook Packages: Palgrave Religion & Philosophy CollectionPhilosophy and Religion (R0)