…would smell as sweet. So why is it that mexican migrants and immigrants worshipped the Lady of Guadalupe more in America than they did back in their home country? She was the same exact saint. I may be wrong but I think that the true reason they all started to become more religious was because it was a unifying factor for them in a scary foreign place, not because the Lady of Guadalupe helped them with their journey to the United States. I don’t see how she protected them when most of them got raped, abused, tricked and some even died.
Another point I found interesting, which was brought up in our last class, was the separation of church and state. I think that these two really cannot be intertwined if an individual can’t separate them on his own. If your political beliefs happen to be the same as the church then that’s fine, but I think it’s wrong when people have certain political beliefs based on what their religion believes and not based on their own opinions. Galvez shows this with a quote from Geertz which states “sacred symbols effect a mutual correspondence between a group’s ethos and worldview…by serving as ‘models of” and ‘models for’ reality,” or what he calls a process of “confrontation and mutual confirmation.” The church shouldn’t be a model for the world. Your world should be constructed from your own views and opinions and not influenced by others.
On the other hand I think it’s great that the immigrants from Mexico were able to form this community where they could communicate and connect with their neighbors in this new country. Even though most did not talk about their experience with crossing the border, just by simply stating that they came by land or water was enough to signify their struggles.
What these immigrants have gone through, and what they are still going through to cross the borders for a better life, is tremendous and scary. It’s amazing that the Lady of Guadalupe can bring them together and make them more devout in America whereas in Mexico they barely attended church because it was a place where the “old ladys” went to. Hopefully though their political beliefs are also influenced by their own views and not just by their communities in the church.
