Borderlands

The story of contemporary religion for Latina/os across the United States/Latin American borders, the borderlands, begins with Spanish colonialism. In 1421, the Mexica or Aztec Mesoamerican imperial capital, Tenochtitlán, fell to an army headed by invading Iberian Christians; in 1533, the Inca Empire of South America lost its imperial capital, Cuzco, to the same fate. These victories heralded a new colonial order throughout what is now Latin America, from the Tijuana border, to the southern tip of Argentina, to the former Spanish colonial islands of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic. In the 19th century, Latin American colonies liberated themselves from Spanish rule and became hybrid republics, torn between their indigenous, European, and African underpinnings. For the most part, Latin American statecraft came to manage the resulting inevitable process of cultural blending and synthesis by recognizing and celebrating its creative potential and effects.

In one sense, “the borderlands” names the place and result of this history—a hybrid social and geographical space, the result of imperial Christian impulses and Indian resistances, emergent in a repertoire of performances that continue to morph. This evolutionary phenomenon is in no way unique to Latina/os; indeed, it happens in many human societies. Yet the historical and geographical contexts and the places and facts of cultural contact are in fact dissimilar and contribute to a particular regional matrix of variations, local culture, and borderlands culture. And indeed, traditions develop that possess the aura of always having existed so that multitudes invest great meaning in them—they become important enough to ground personal and national master identities.