NewsTaco

By Richard Land, Washington Post

Will wonders never cease? In the midst of an unprecedented avalanche of negative media against traditional religious values and the groups espousing them, a strongly pro-traditional religious values story made the cover of the most recent Time (April 15, 2013).Titled “The Latino Reformation,” the story’s subtitle, “Inside the new Hispanic churches transforming religion in America,” describes how the tremendous upsurge in Latino “born-again” evangelicals is transforming not only Latino culture, but American Christianity. The reporter, Elizabeth Dias, profiles some leading Latino evangelical churches to chronicle the transformation being wrought in Latino and American Christianity.

Time points out that while Latinos made up 17 percent of the U.S. population in 2011 they will be 29 percent of the population by 2050.

Click on the picture to read the story.

[Photo by Changed Latino Youth]

Have you read an article you’d like to suggest for the NewsTaco community? Let us know at: tips@newstaco.com

By Aaron Schrank, Religion News Service

As the country’s fastest-growing population, Latinos now make up nearly 40 percent of all U.S. Catholics, but represent less than 14 percent of students at Catholic schools, according to the National Catholic Educational Association.

In the past decade, 16 percent of U.S. Catholic schools have closed, dropping from 8,114 to 6,841. Enrollment nationwide has declined 23 percent—driven by competition from charter schools, fallout from the church’s sex abuse scandals and changing demographics.

Catholic leaders now tout Latino outreach as one answer to the system’s problems. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops called on its schools to increase Latino outreach in a 2005 statement. Since then, dioceses around the country — including Boston, Cincinnati and Phoenix — have launched initiatives.

Click on picture to read full story.

[Photo by joguldi]

By NBCLatino/Associated Press

The red shoes are being retired.

Pope Benedict XVI wearing red shoes for an official event. (Photo by Sergio Dionisio/Getty Images)

The Pope is giving up the trademark that briefly made him a fashion star, trading in his snappy ruby-red loafers for a pair of hand-crafted brown ones made for him by artisans in Mexico. He will wear those in retirement, Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi says.

The flash of red sparked (unfounded) rumors he was wearing Prada and helped make him Esquire magazine’s accessorizer of the year in 2007. The actual designer? A craftsman who left Peru in 1998.  Antonio Arellano told Reuters  Pope Benedict XVI was a loyal customer before he became Pope and even made the pair of red loafers with his name lined on the inside of the shoe.

“When he was cardinal, he came in like any normal person to have his shoes mended,” said Arellano to Reuters, whose shop is in a Rome quarter that neighbours the Vatican City – since 1998.  Arellano said he was elated to find out Pope Benedict wore his shoes in 2011 during Pope John Paul II grand beatification ceremony.  Though the retiring Pope will no longer be wearing those red shoes, he hopes to keep him as a customer still, and perhaps add others.

“In the future, the new pope, let’s hope he will be my customer, if he is, hallelujah, another one .. Working for him would be fantastic,” he told Reuters.

A former Vatican official assured The Associated Press back in 2005 that Benedict was no clothes horse, advising that the pontiff “wouldn’t know Gucci from Smoochi.”

NBC Latino staff contributed to this report. 

This article was first published in NBC Latino.

[Phtot by The U.S. Army]

By Christian Today

The number of US Hispanics identifying themselves as Catholic has declined in the last five years.

According to a Gallup poll, 11 per cent of US Hispanics selected their religious preference as “None/Don’t Know Refused” in 2008, compared with 15 per cent in 2012.

While the number identifying themselves as Protestant remained largely the same (27 per cent in 2008 versus 28 per cent in 2012), those identifying themselves as Catholic fell in the last five years from 58 per cent to 54 per cent.

Click on picture to read full story.

[Photo by claytron]

By Dr. Victoria M. De Francesco Soto, NBCLatino

What do Evangelicals, Catholics, and Mormons all have in common?  And no, this is not the beginning of a joke.

The growth of all three faiths is being fueled by the Latino population.   Latinos are not just the fastest growing population but as a group they are more religious.  Latinos are the fastest growing segments of the Evangelical movement, the Catholic Church, and the Church of Latter Day Saints (LDS).  Coincidentally, these religious groups are also supportive of a more open immigration policy.

Click on picture to read story.

[Photo by America Redefined]

By Mary Jo McConahay, New America Media

SAN SALVADOR — Local bishops, not the pope, traditionally run church life and sometimes political life from Mexico to Argentina, but the reach of Pope Benedict XVI, who announced his retirement effective Feb. 28, has been unique. For decades, when Ratzinger’s shoe dropped, the tremor reverberated over Latin America, where half of the world’s one billion Catholics live.

After the watershed Second Vatican Council, which stressed ecumenism and invited active lay participation in ecclesial thinking and ritual, Latin America took the fresh insights of the Church to heart perhaps more than any other region. It was as if the piety and first-hand understanding of hardship and sacrifice that filled the lives of the Latin poor had been just waiting to burst out, to inform the wider faith with their understanding of it, thoughtfully to question what they saw as anomalous. Discussions among church members in small “base Christian communities,” and their dialogue with pastors and theologians, made the 1960s and 1970s effervescent with new perceptions and commitments to challenging injustice. Latin American bishops meeting in Medellin and Puebla established “the preferential option for the poor”; called oppressive structures like corrupt capitalism “sinful,” but not unchangeable; and declared the aim of practiced faith was not development, but liberation.

In the 1980s, the man now known as Pope Benedict XVI directed the Church’s doctrine watchdog office once called the Inquisition. He put the brakes on the fast-growing movement that became known as liberation theology, calling it a “fundamental threat.” The church’s body was moving ahead of its red-cloaked clergy, and that was intolerable. Ratzinger forbade certain world-famous Latin theologians to publish or preach by invoking what is called “silencing,” a tool wielded from above meant to prevent ”confusion” among church members, but arguably used by Ratzinger to quell challenges to structures on which the Latin Church had fed for five hundred years: small, landed, wealthy oligarchies; the militaries at their service; strict ecclesial hierarchies deaf to input from the ordinary laity.

When long-brewing civil strife erupted in Guatemala and El Salvador, the military denounced Church members who abided by liberation theology, characterizing it as a political movement aligned with armed leftist insurgents, killing dozens of unarmed priests and hundreds of civilian catechists. Ratzinger remained virtually silent. Church figures calling for peace were targeted. Here in San Salvador, its government supported by the United States during a 12-year civil war, a right wing death squad killed Bishop Oscar Romero as he said Mass in 1980. Members of the Salvadoran National Guard kidnapped, raped and killed four U.S. churchwomen working among the urban poor in the capital. In 1989, members of a U.S.-trained elite unit assassinated six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her daughter. The Vatican was notable for pulling its punches with Washington during the time. What might have happened, Guatemalans and El Salvadorans ask to this day, if Ratzinger and Pope John Paul II had regarded the Latin American call for liberation from autocratic rulers with the same force with which the European churchmen supported the Polish Solidarity revolution?

Latin neoliberal administrations that emerged from the tumultuous 1980s and 1990s are a disappointment to many, failing to fill the promise of delivering better lives — even ending poverty — with development and new businesses. Amnesty International reports that the number of murdered El Salvadoran women and girls, mostly poor, often found mutilated, doubled in three years to 477 in 2011. The most recent (2011) United Nations Development Program Report on El Salvador reiterates throughout the need for social policy to become one of the mainstays of development, that “the welfare of persons is not only about income.” Much of the country, it says, continues finding a way of life in the middle of persistent poverty and inequality.

Rev. Jose Maria Tojeira, former rector of the University of Central America where the Jesuits were killed, told El Faro, El Salvador’s digital newspaper, that whoever is elected pope must be “very committed” to peace and support solidarity with the poorest during the “crisis of meaning” that prevails in the world. Much hunger and social justice persist, he said, “and I believe these are the challenges for the Catholic Church in a world very centered in technology, and in ‘how to live’ more than ‘what to live for.’” Tojeira lamented that the pope would leave without completing the beatification process begun in 1996 for Archbishop Romero, a step to sainthood.

Amid speculation about who will be the next pope, are suggestions that the time may have come for a Latin American prelate, or someone from the global south. Half of the cardinals who will vote are from Europe, but only a quarter of Catholics live there. Whoever is elected, dramatic church changes do not appear imminent.

“Given that the previous and current pope have stuffed the College of Cardinals with like-minded conservatives, the future will probably look like the recent past,” said Thomas Sheehan, Professor of Religious Studies at Stanford University. Sheehan worked in El Salvador war zones as a freelance reporter in the 1980s.

What has not changed from the days when Ratzinger recognized the transformative potential of liberation theology and challenged it, is the understanding that Latin America is the future of the Church. Before the pope’s surprise resignation announcement, he was scheduled to attend the opening of World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro, July 1. The largest Catholic country in the world, Brazil has become an economic powerhouse, and is home to some of the most outstanding liberation theology thinkers. The Vatican says it is not canceling a papal appearance. Brazil is likely to be the first foreign destination of the new pope.

This article was first published in New America Media.

Mary Jo McConahay’s reporting has appeared in Time, Newsweek, Vogue, Rolling Stone, Ms., Salon, Sierra, Los Angeles Times Magazine, Parenting, The Progressive, National Catholic Reporter, and more than two dozen other magazines and periodicals. She began freelancing in Mexico; became a staff reporter for the Arab News, in Saudi Arabia; and reported for the Paris-based International Herald Tribune, and London-based economic magazines. She covered the Central American insurgencies for a decade for Pacific News Service, and U.S. newspapers such as the San Francisco Examiner and Chronicle.

[Photo courtesy New America Media]

By Steve Scherer, Janet McBride, Reuters

The 85-year-old pope said he had noticed that his strength had deteriorated over recent months “to the extent that I have had to recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfill the ministry entrusted to me”.

Click on picture to read story.

[Photo by Sergey Gabdurakhmanov ]

By Jennifer Medina and Ian Lovett, Los Angeles Times

With the release of documents that make it increasingly clear that Cardinal Mahony shielded priests accused of child abuse from investigations by law enforcement officials, his legacy as a champion of immigrants may soon be overshadowed.

[Photo by digitalshay]

By Wendy Diaz, New America Media/The Muslim Link

SOMERSET, N.J. — Tucked away in a quiet rural neighborhood in Somerset, New Jersey is an old brownstone that houses the New Jersey Chapter of the Islamic Center of North America’s (ICNA) WhyIslam Project. Within its confines, in a second floor office decorated with rose-colored walls, sits the administrative assistant and only female employee of the department, Nahela Morales.

In a long black garment and gray headscarf, Morales sits in front of a computer entering notes and taking phone calls from the program’s hotline, 1-877-WhyIslam, a resource for individuals hoping to learn more about the religion. A Mexican immigrant and recent convert, Morales is the national Spanish-language outreach coordinator for the program, part of ICNA’s mission to disseminate information about Islam nationwide.

But Morales’ efforts go beyond U.S. borders: the 37-year-old recently led a trip to bring Islamic literature, food and clothing to her native Mexico.

Morales, who was born in Mexico City but later moved to California and then New York, is part of a growing population of immigrant Muslim converts from Latin America – many of them women — now helping to bring the religion back to their home countries.

Immigrant Latinas Find a Place in Islam

“Many immigrants are here by themselves,” says Morales, noting that Latina immigrant women are drawn to Islam because of the sense of “belonging” they find within the Muslim community. “When they come into the mosque and see smiling faces, they feel welcome.”

According to WhyIslam’s 2012 annual report, 19 percent of the some 3,000 converts it assisted in 2011 were Latinos, and more than half of those (55 percent) were women. The 2011 U.S. Mosque Survey, which interviewed leaders at 524 mosques across the country, found the number of new female converts to Islam had increased 8 percent since 2000, and that Latinos accounted for 12 percent of all new converts in the United States in 2011.

Experts attribute the phenomenon to recent migration trends.

Muslim and Latino immigrants are increasingly living side by side in urban neighborhoods across the country, from California, Texas and Florida to New York and Illinois, states that according to data from the Migration Policy Institute constitute 72.5 percent of the total foreign-born population from Latin America in the United States. At the same time, these five states are also home to the highest number of mosques, The American Mosque 2011 Report shows, reflecting a growing Muslim presence as well.

Wilfredo Ruiz, a native of Puerto Rico who converted to Islam in 2003, is an attorney and political analyst specializing on the Islamic world. In addition to working with various non-profit organizations, including the American Muslim Association of North America (AMANA), he also serves as the imam at his local mosque in South Florida.

“More women than men convert, both in AMANA offices and in the mosques in Southern Florida,” Ruiz says. Latina immigrants, he explains, often feel exploited both in Latin America and the United States. The higher status afforded women in Islam and their modest dress, he believes, offers a sensible alternative.

“I have heard from Latina women that they seek protection, and they find [that] protection and respect in Islam,” he adds.

Juan Galvan, executive director of the Latino-American Dawah Association and author of Latino Muslims: Our Journeys to Islam, believes that Islam may also hold another, distinctly religious appeal to Latino immigrants because it reveals to them what he calls a more profound understanding of monotheism.

“Most Latino Muslim converts have had personal experiences with Muslims that first drew them closer to Islam,” he explains. “These Muslims may be their friends, acquaintances, classmates, coworkers, bosses, marriage partners, or others. By interacting with Muslims, a non-Muslim learns about Islamic monotheism for the first time.”

Because Islam emphasizes God’s, or Allah’s, oneness, Galvan says, it presents Latinos with a unique alternative to traditional Christian theologies that accept the existence of holy deities – Jesus, the Holy Spirit, saints and miracle workers — which are connected to, yet distinct, from God.

“While Protestantism may have fewer intermediaries than Catholicism, Latinos come to Islam because they believe in a concept of God that acknowledges Him as the Most Powerful and therefore, needs no son,” says Galvan, who is himself a Mexican-American convert to Islam.

Prayers Answered


Morales found her own place in Islam after a turbulent past.

In 1979, Morales’ mother risked crossing the border into the United States illegally and alone, leaving her infant daughter behind in Mexico under her grandmother’s care. When Morales was 5 years old, she was finally reunited with her mother, who by that time had settled in Los Angeles. Mother and daughter gained amnesty under the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. However, even as a U.S. citizen, Morales recalls feeling out of place.

“It was a very difficult adjustment since I did not speak English,” says Morales. “I remember entering the school system and not being able to communicate with my teachers or peers. I wanted to go back home [to Mexico].”

Adding to her difficulties, Morales was the victim of years of neglect and abuse at home, and as a pre-teen she was removed from her mother’s custody and placed in foster care and group homes, until ultimately she was able to settle on her own and finish college.

She moved to New York in 2001. Shortly after her relocation, the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks occurred at the World Trade Center. When news reports blamed Muslim extremists, Morales began to research Islam.

“I was watching the news and they were always showing [Muslim] people shouting ‘Allahu-akbar,’ God is great, so I thought, if your God is so great, why is he allowing you to kill people? If Muslims say Islam [is about] peace, then this doesn’t make sense.” She decided to find the answers herself and purchased a copy of the Quran, Islam’s holy book. Morales also began befriending Muslim women on MySpace.

“They were so nice, and I became more curious. One of the Muslim women I met happened to be Puerto Rican, and she got in touch with someone in California that could send me an information package about Islam with books, a Quran, a prayer rug, and a hijab [headscarf].”

Morales continued to make contact with Muslims through the Internet and searched online for the closest mosque to her new home in North Bergen, New Jersey. She began visiting the mosque and eventually converted in 2003, and continues to be an active member of the North Hudson Islamic Educational Center, or NHIEC.

Situated in a predominantly Hispanic neighborhood, 30 percent of NHIEC’s congregants are Latinos. The Latino influence is so great that the mosque offers simultaneous Spanish translation of its Friday sermons and Islamic studies classes, and even hosts an annual “Hispanic Muslim Day.”

During one of her visits to the NHIEC mosque in 2009, a WhyIslam worker overheard Morales speaking Spanish and asked if she would be interested in a bilingual position with the company.

“I asked [God] to please send me a job where I would be able to worship and wear my veil. I knew right then my prayer was being answered,” recalls Morales.

She has now been working with NHIEC for more than three years, and recently led a campaign to deliver Islamic literature and audio, clothing, and toiletries to a needy Muslim community in Mexico City.

During that trip Morales met with her own family members in Mexico, who are mostly Catholic. She says that initially they were not accepting of her decision to practice Islam or of her modest style of dress. They accused her of turning her back on her culture. But on her most recent trip to her hometown of Cuernavaca, she took the opportunity to talk to them more about her religion.

“It is obvious that Islam is still very strange in Mexico,” admits Morales, who says that since her last visit her own family has become more receptive. “But it is also very clear that people want to learn about it.”

Latina Muslims, At Home and Abroad

Isabela Duarte has been in the United States since the age of seven. A Muslim convert living in Chicago, the 30-year-old left Mexico with her family in 1990, crossing the border illegally and moving to the Windy City, where she attended school while her parents worked. After high school, she says, she had no other choice but to follow in her parents’ footsteps.

“I figured that there was no possibility of furthering my education because I’d lack assistance due to my status,” she explains. She eventually landed an administrative position in a social services agency, but thanks to the recession she soon lost her job.

“That’s when my real struggles began. I searched for jobs everywhere. Immigration laws became tougher … most places of employment denied me any type of opportunity regardless of the experience I had.” She ultimately settled for babysitting jobs that paid under the table.

In the winter of 2008, while her parents faced foreclosure, unemployment, and a divorce, Duarte had an emotional breakdown. Seeking help, she came upon a YouTube video of Quran recitations. Her best friend, who was Puerto Rican, had already become a Muslim, and Duarte soon followed in her footsteps.

But while she has found solace and community, participating regularly in events held by the Latino Muslims of Chicago, an Islamic group that serves the needs of Latinos, she says her immigration status continues to be a struggle.

“This is my home,” she says. “Chicago has been my home and I don’t recall any other.”

Part of a growing Hispanic population in the United States, Duarte is also among a Muslim community that, according to the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion and Public Life, is expected to increase dramatically over the next 20 years, thanks largely to immigration from South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa.

In North and South America, the estimated Muslim population in 2010 was 5,256,000. This number is expected to more than double by the year 2030.

Thirty-four-year-old Liliana Anaya, a Muslim convert from Colombia and a graduate of American University in Washington, D.C., is familiar with the trend. The mosque in her hometown, Barranquilla, Colombia, reports an average of four conversions a month.

Anaya, who converted to Islam in June 2002, is a graduate of Rollins University in Orlando, Florida, where she majored in political science and international relations. She later attended American University to complete a Master’s Degree in international peace and conflict resolution.

After graduating, she got a job at a non-profit organization offering mediation for criminal, district, and county court systems in northern Virginia. During this time, she met her husband, a Muslim convert from Argentina, and together they applied for U.S. citizenship.

While Anaya was expecting their first child, she decided to travel back to her country to give birth. After their arrival, she and her husband discovered the Othman bin Affan Mosque in Barranquilla, a small Muslim community that lacked adequate resources. Because Anaya’s husband had earned a degree in Islamic Propagation from Umm Al Qura University in Saudi Arabia, they became involved in the mosque, organizing and teaching classes.

“I felt that Muslims in the states are already part of the fabric of the society,” Anaya explains. “But here [in Colombia], we are in the baby steps. If I want something, I have to create it. If I want Islamic classes for my children, I have to create them.”

Anaya and her husband are now in the process of establishing an Islamic school for the Muslims of Barranquilla. Both say that given their commitment to the work, return to the United States is unlikely.

“The Muslim community here needs us,” says Anaya, “so we can’t move.”

This story was made possible by a grant from Atlantic Philanthropies, and was produced as part of New America Media’s Women Immigrants Fellowship Program.

This article was first published in New America Media.

Wendy (Umm Uthman) Diaz is the Co-founder of Hablamos Islam and Hablamos Islam Niños, two websites dedicated to providing Spanish-speaking Muslims and non-Muslims with educational resources about Islam in Spanish.

[Photo courtesy New America Media]

By Latino Rebels

Is the new voice of civil rights for US Latinos here? Maybe so, if you listen to what the Rev. Sam Rodríguez, the the fortysomething evangelical president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference (NHCLC), has to say. This year Rodríguez, who is of Puerto Rican descent, will be “the first Latino leader to give a keynote address at Dr. King’s annual commemorative service scheduled for Monday, January, 21.”According to NBC Latino, “the event also marks the beginning of a year-long celebration honoring the 50th anniversary of his unforgettable ‘I Have a Dream’ speech.” By the way, according to the article, Rodríguez turned down an invitation to speak at President Obama’s inauguration because of his commitment to the King memorial.

If the following video is any indication of that the Rev. Rodríguez will speak about on January 21, this year should be memorable. You would think other Latino leaders would follow Rodríguez’s lead. Talk about fiery rhetoric.

But hey, we have known about the Rev. Sam for a while now, especially when he was unfairly criticized by the ignorant Tequila Party for not being qualified to talk about immigration because he was Puerto Rican. And during the early days of the GOP primaries in 2011, Rodríguez led the way in telling politicians that theanti-immigrant rhetoric just needs to stop. Recently, Rodríguez and other Latino evangelical leaders are pushing for comprehensive immigration reform, taking their message to the pulpit in the “I Was a Stranger” campaign.
Now we are not saying that everything Rodríguez says is spot on. There are still issues surrounding his views on gay marriage, for example. But it is clear that Rev. Sam is promoting brown/black unity and a belief that immigration is a civil rights issue.

This article was first published in Latino Rebels.

The Latino Rebels are a collective of social media influentials, bloggers, marketers, journalists, poets, writers, producers, photographers, and marketers. We use humor, commentary, opinions, independent stories, cross-links to others blogs, and our social media platforms to share our universe.

[Photo by  Center for American Progress]

By Hector Luis Alamo, Jr., Being Latino

A bit of nonsense is being stirred up by a Latino family in Texas:

“A federal judge has ruled that a Texas school has the right to force a student to wear an ID badge, something she was refusing saying the embedded tracking device is sacrilegious to her Christian faith. 

The Tuesday ruling gave the school the right to expel or transfer 15-year-old Andrea Hernandez from the district. It said that if the girl is to stay at the school, she would be required to wear the badge. Otherwise, she would have to transfer to a new school. …

Last fall, the Northside Independent School District began experimenting with ‘locator’ chips in student ID badges on two campuses, allowing administrators to track the whereabouts of 4,200 students with GPS-like precision.

Administrators say the chips make students safer and will help boost attendance records that are used to calculate badly needed state funding.

Hernandez’s suit against Northside –the fourth-largest school district in Texas– argues that the ID rule violates her religious beliefs. Her family says the badge is satanic and a ‘mark of the beast’ that goes against their religion.”

My main gripe with the case has nothing to do with the secular arguments against surveillance and the invasion of privacy. The way I see it, a 15-year-old girl is not a consenting adult and therefore is not vested with the same level of rights that an adult is, especially rights concerning privacy. A parent may enter their child’s room whenever they want and peruse their personal items, just as a teacher or school administration can demand that a student empty their pockets, open their locker, or fork over their cell phone.

Minors enjoy a certain level of respect under the law — the rights which demand they be treated as human beings — but not much, or at least not as much as adults do.

In any case, the family isn’t arguing on the grounds of privacy. They’re saying their religion forbids little Andrea from using the tracking ID.

So, coming to what really sticks in my craw, I can’t believe that, in the year 2013, I have to read about a case in which an American family sues an American school over an ID, claiming it violates the family’s religious beliefs — their apparently literal belief in the Book of Revelation, no less. And if I weren’t embarrassed enough as an American, that the family is Latino only adds salt to the wound.

The Book of Revelation — undoubtedly the most deranged pages in already one of the most twisted, cockeyed and savage texts ever produced by our species, written near the close of the first century CE by either a brilliant allegorist or a bona fide schizophrenic living in a cave.

And now, because a couple of Latinos, touched by an angel in the head, think church is more important than school, they’re suing the educators based on something their jabbering, know-nothing pastor told them one Sunday morning. (You have never, in your life, heard of a teacher suing a preacher or a school administrator suing a religious student. Never ever.)

I understand full well the integral role superstitions play in Latino culture. My own sweet and otherwise sharp ‘ita regularly recounts to me how she once saw “una bruja” transform into an owl when she was a little girl in Honduras. I especially love the story of how her father shot and killed un chancho that was attacking him in the woods, and when he returned with his brothers to recover the body, they found a man shot dead.

Latinos seem to have a flair for the fantastical.

To Andrea, who I’m sure doesn’t want to be the center of a kerfuffle between her deranged parents and her high school, just do what all teenagers do whenever parents open their mouths. Say this: “Mom, dad, you’re embarrassing me.”

And maybe, just maybe, you should find something more useful to do with your Sunday mornings.

This article was first published in Being Latino.

Hector Luis Alamo, Jr., is the associate editor at Being Latino and a native son of Chicago’s Humboldt Park neighborhood. He received a B.A. in history at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where his concentration was on ethnic relations in the United States. While at UIC, he worked first as a staff writer for the Chicago Flame and later became the newspaper’s Opinions editor. He contributes to various Chicago-area publications, most notably, the RedEye and Gozamos. He’s also a cultural critic for ‘LLERO magazine. He has maintained a personal blog since 2007, YoungObservers.blogspot.com, where he discusses topics ranging from political history and philosophy to culture and music.

[Photo by knittymarie]

By Gustavo Aguirre, Borderzine

Click on picture to read story.

[Photo by uteart]

By Ray Salazar, NewsTaco

Tradition inspires faith but hope perpetuates devotion.  On December 12, Mexican Catholics mark the appearance of Our Lady of Guadalupe in 1531 on a hilltop.  Today, Mexicans crowded churches at dawn in celebration.  Over two million people will gather throughout the day next to Tepeyac Hill in Mexico City where her basilica stands.  For Mexicans, Our Lady of Guadalupe remains a symbol of unending faith, cultural pride, and religious identity.

For me, my faith in this religious image, despite the controversy of her origin, helped me believe my mother would win her fight against cancer seven years ago.  Almost thirty years ago, my family looked to this religious image as my sister battled leukemia at Chicago’s Children’s Memorial Hospital.

When Our Lady of Guadalupe appeared to a Mexican indian named Juan Diego, she asked him to convince the bishop that a church be constructed in her name.  As evidence of her appearance, roses miraculously grew in December.  The indian harvested the flowers and carried them away.  When Juan Diego released the roses at the bishop’s feet, an image of Our Lady remained on his apron.

That image still exists.  Scientists challenged its authenticity without success.

It is our tradition, when she intervenes on our behalf, to leave candles and roses as ofrendas at her feet.  Seven years ago, a version of this essay aired on National Public Radio as my offering of thanks.

Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, again I offer up my work, my writing.  With unending gratitude for my mother’s health and for my sister’s survival.  And with fervent hope for all women who fought and keep fighting cancer–especially for those who must unfortunately fight for high-quality affordable health care.

*     *     *     *     *     *     *     *

I stopped believing in the Catholic Church for a few years.  But I never stopped believing in Our Lady of Guadalupe.  She’s separate from scandal.  She’s brown, humble.  And unlike the other saints who stare blankly past people requesting intervention at their plaster feet, La Virgen never looks away. She has unwrinkled eyelids and black lashes.

Her original cloth image is enclosed behind bullet-proof glass in Mexico City.  It’s surrounded by as much gold as the controversy of her origin.  Every December 12, millions of Mexican Catholics serenade her and buy roses in her name.  Catholics worldwide recognize her as the patron saint of the Americas.

I was sixteen when I saw her in the basilica on Tepeyac Hill.  People made their way down the long aisle on their knees.  Worshipers around me whispered in appreciation.  My grandmother knelt praying in a pew.  I stared at the image trying to figure out what to say and what to do.

But when my mother was diagnosed with cancer in 2005, I knew exactly what to ask for when I knelt in front of La Virgen at St. Pius Church.

My son and I were with my mother when she found out.  I held her hands.  The same hands I have.  The hands my son inherited.  When the doctor spoke, my mom folded over like a finger.  I searched for every way to assure her that cancer is surmountable.

I went with her to every doctor’s visit.  I stood behind the curtain while the doctor examined her.  I respected her privacy but never left her all alone.  Seven years later, my mother is strong.  And I keep praying for her health.

La Virgen has the power to unite people in a crisis.  She was an organizing force behind the farm workers, along with Cesar Chávez.  She brings together educated Chicanas who might be skeptical about the Church, but never doubt the power of a brown-faced pregnant saint.  La Virgen is the single Mexican woman powerful enough to pull a European Pope across an ocean.

Like La Virgen, my mother taught us to unite during desperate times. That year, each person in my family joined my mother in her fight.  My youngest brother engaged her in heart-to-heart conversations.  My sister, the leukemia survivor, took my mom on trips to flea markets.  My other brother didn’t talk about it so my mom could focus on what was good.  My father made her oatmeal to make sure she ate.

That’s my mother’s quiet influence.  Throughout her life, she teaches us to overcome controversy, desperation, and doubt.

La Virgen does the same.  I see her now in alley murals, on concrete walls, ID bracelets, gold charms.  I recognize the influence of her existence.  La Virgen is one woman who changed a continent’s perspective simply by existing.

Seven summers ago, my mom inspired us to take a Sunday drive.  We filled two vans and two cars and drove to the outdoor shrine for Our Lady of Guadalupe in a Chicago suburb.

Underneath the sun, my mom stood before the image trying not to cry.  My father ambled next to her.  Then my siblings and I accompanied by our spouses and the grandchildren.  Now there are twelve.  Huddling around our mother, asking for intervention of immeasurable worth, we all prayed silently.  We stood together resolutely—like roses.

[Photo by Esparta]

By Trina Hernandez, Latino USA

When Austin resident Trina Hernandez found out her family had Jewish roots, it allowed her to ditch the commercial aspects of Christmas she had long disliked and connect to a tradition she found more meaningful for her and her son.

This article was first published in Latino USA.

Trina Hernandez is a busy madre y esposa and legal assistant by day and a blogger, contributor forLatinometro, and co-director for Austin’s LATISM chapter by night. She is also a proud resident of Austin, TX, sharing everything she experiences within the city. You can always find her on twitter (@atxtrina) or on her couch watching too much TV. And you can definitely always find her at home on Sabbath.

This article was first published in Latino USA.

[Photo by gaudium mundo]