| Book Review | The Western Historical Quarterly, 35.3

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| Book Review | The Western Historical Quarterly, 35.3 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Horizons of the Sacred: Mexican Traditions in U.S. Catholicism. Edited by Timothy Matovina and Gary Riebe-Estrella, SVD. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2002. ix + 189 pp. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. $45.00, £30.50, cloth; $19.95, £13.50, paper.)

Border of Death, Valley of Life: An Immigrant Journey of Heart and Spirit. By Daniel G. Groody. (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002. xv + 188 pp. Illustrations, chart, appendix, notes, bibliography, index.)

The religious influences, roles, practices, and experiences of people of Mexican descent have recently received a lot of attention from ministers, lay people, and scholars. These two books contribute to the increasing focus given to these fascinating and interesting topics. In Horizons of the Sacred, the authors deal specifically with the Mexican American role and influence within the Catholic Church in the United States. Matovina and Riebe-Estrella state that while at one time the Catholic Church was dominated by European immigrants, the modern Catholic Church remains an entity where Mexican Americans continue to practice their religious customs and traditions, and thus have helped shape many of the rituals, practices, and traditions within the context of modern day Catholicism. Specifically, Matovina and Riebe-Estrella have complied four major essays vividly describing Mexican American Catholic practices and celebrations centered around Our Lady of Guadalupe at the San Fernando Cathedral in San Antonio, Texas, the Via Crucis (The Living Way of the Cross) in Chicago, Dia de Los Muertos, and the practice of curanderismo (folk medicine) in Los Angeles.

Each essay describes not only the spiritual and humanistic meaning (such as feminine virginity and domesticity of the Guadalupan devotion) of the celebration for Mexican Americans, but additionally, the authors demonstrate that religious celebrations also contain expressions of the social injustice, political protest, inequality, and social criticism that Mexican Americans encounter in this country. The last essay highlights the many paradoxical aspects of Catholicism and Mexican traditions encompassed in the practice of curanderismo.

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