The importance of religion in New Mexico is manifest in this collection of essays that represents the work of twenty-three of the region's most noted scholars and writers. Among the topics they cover are church architecture, the role of missionaries in colonization, the role of the church in education, the contributions of the Penitentes, and the work of specific orders, particularly the Jesuits and the Franciscans. Local devotion to such figures as St. Michael, La Guadalupana, La Conquistadora, and Nuestra Senora de Belen is addressed, as well as the work of such historic leaders as Padre Martinez and Archbishop Lamy. In addition to its importance for historians, this book will be of interest to genealogists. It includes an essay on sacramental records and the preservation of New Mexico family genealogies from the colonial era to the present.

Recounts the author's experiences founding a faith-based community garden in rural North Carolina, and emphasizes how growing one's own food can help readers reconnect with the land and divine faith.

This book tells the story of Zellers v. Huff, which challenged Catholic religious employed in public schools in 1948. The "Dixon case," as it was known nationally, was the most famous in a series of midcentury lawsuits, all targeting what opponents provocatively dubbed "captive schools." Spearheaded by Protestants and Other Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the publicity campaign built around Zellers drew on centuries-old rhetoric of Catholic captivity to remind Americans about the threat of Catholic power in the post-War era, and the danger Catholic sisters dressed in full habits posed to American education.

Built by Spanish Franciscan missionaries in the seventeenth century, the magnificent mission church at Acoma Pueblo in west-central New Mexico is the oldest and largest intact adobe structure in North America. But in the 1920s, in danger of becoming a ruin, the building was restored in a cooperative effort among Acoma Pueblo, which owned the structure, and other interested parties. Kate Wingert-Playdon's narrative of the restoration and the process behind it is the only detailed account of this milestone example of historic preservation, in which New Mexico's most famous architect, John Gaw Meem, played a major role.

"This book shows how imperialism molded American religion-both the category of religion and the traditions designated as religions-and reveals the multifaceted roles of American religions in structuring, enabling, surviving, and resisting the U.S. Empire"--

Through dozens of original documents ¡Presente! offers readers the story of Latino/Hispanic Catholicism from 1534 to the present. From the first mission encounters in the sixteenth century, to Cesar Chavez and the UFW, to the beginnings of mujerista theology in the 1980s, this collection offers a unique and indispensable look at the community that has become the largest ethnic component in the American Catholic Church today.

An essential resource for understanding the complex history of Mexican Americans and racial classification in the United States Manifest Destinies tells the story of the original Mexican Americans—the people living in northern Mexico in 1846 during the onset of the Mexican American War. The war abruptly came to an end two years later, and 115,000 Mexicans became American citizens overnight. Yet their status as full-fledged Americans was tenuous at best. Due to a variety of legal and political maneuvers, Mexican Americans were largely confined to a second class status. How did this categorization occur, and what are the implications for modern Mexican Americans? Manifest Destinies fills a gap in American racial history by linking westward expansion to slavery and the Civil War. In so doing, Laura E Gómez demonstrates how white supremacy structured a racial hierarchy in which Mexican Americans were situated relative to Native Americans and African Americans alike. Steeped in conversations and debates surrounding the social construction of race, this book reveals how certain groups become racialized, and how racial categories can not only change instantly, but also the ways in which they change over time. This new edition is updated to reflect the most recent evidence regarding the ways in which Mexican Americans and other Latinos were racialized in both the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. The book ultimately concludes that it is problematic to continue to speak in terms Hispanic “ethnicity” rather than consider Latinos qua Latinos alongside the United States’ other major racial groupings. A must read for anyone concerned with racial injustice and classification today. Listen to Laura Gómez's interviews on The Brian Lehrer Show, Wisconsin Public Radio, Texas Public Radio, and KRWG.

This work interweaves Indian history, educational history, family history, and child welfare policy to tell the story of Indian orphanages within the larger context of the orphan asylum in America. It relates the history of these orphanages and the cultural factors that produced and sustained them.

This book illuminates our understanding of what happens when different cultures meet. Twelve cultural historians explore the mechanism and inner dynamic of such encounters, and demonstrate that while they often occur on the wave of global forces and influences, they only acquire meaning locally, where culture inherently resides.

Winner of a 2005 Critics Choice Award fromThe American Educational Studies Association, this is a groundbreaking collection of oral histories, letters, interviews, and governmental reports related to the history of Latino education in the US. Victoria-María MacDonald examines the intersection of history, Latino culture, and education while simultaneously encouraging undergraduates and graduate students to reexamine their relationship to the world of education and their own histories.