Elizabeth McAllister’s text “The Madonna of 115th Street Revisited: Vodou and Haitian Catholicism in an Age of Transnationalism,” provides an epilogue of sorts to Orsi’s text. This piece picks up where the book left off, centering on the same community with now only 750 Italian residents left. In the stead of the once entirely Italian Catholic neighborhood, a wave of Haitian immigrants with a new method of worship, although of the same Madonna statue, is the focus. The church, the very same described in Orsi’s book, has transformed from a place almost exclusively Italian where woman had once crawled on hands and knees up to the alter to plead for a reversal of their fortune, to instead “a center of spiritual power where [Haitian immigrants] will be welcome.” The ceremony once almost exclusively made up of Caucasian attendees has become “a sea of coffee-, mahogany-, and cinnamon-colored bodies,” “a multiethnic social stage that is vastly more diverse.”
This article provides a look at a changing landscape in the aftermath of a community in which as their prosperity increased, the original Italian occupants left their first home in New York behind for “middle-class suburban communities with lawns and fences.” The migration of these people is extremely significant as it makes way for a new wave of immigrants to come to the United States, people who also, like their Italian predecessors, allow Harlem to become a cultural and religious center and connection to the countries they left behind. The Haitian people parallel the Italians of East Harlem in many ways, among which is the fact that people travel from all over the United States to attend the “Fête du Notre Dame du Mount Carmel.” The Haitian fête, which like the Italian festa is a religious celebration during which entire families flock to the church in special attire, make themselves look extra presentable, and come to the shrine of the virgin to worship, even follows the schedule of the original festa. The fête in fact is still the very same festa organized by remaining Italian priests of the church, now complete with masses offered hourly in every language from English to French, Latin to Spanish, and lastly, but certainly not least, Haitian Creole to Italian.
While candles are still a large part of the ceremony, a new twist on the worship of the Madonna in this ceremony is the use of guns and firecrackers to “heat up” the prayers. This piece tells of a mother whose child was born with illness. Just like an Italian mother would do in the same circumstance, this mother prays to the Madonna and when her child makes a full recovery she wears blue and white, the Haitian colors of the ceremony, every day until her communion. The similarities of the two services are easy to pick up on, however things like vodou and the belief of the Madonna being able to possess those attending the church. Their worship may be different but this piece centers on a new wave of people who find solace in the Madonna statue, her human hair a symbol of strength just as it was for the Italians who came before these Haitian immigrants. McAllister shows us that Italian Harlem has become the home for latinos and Hatians and people from all different areas who still follow in the footsteps of the people who paved the streets before them in their devotion and dedication to their reverence of the Madonna.
