Acknowledgments

When you’ve lived with a book as long as I have lived with this one, the people and places that appear or have left their impressions on its pages constitute a world unto its own. At the center of this world are those in the about whom I write, people who have seen or heard of an ap- pearance of Mary and who have shared with me that experience or knowl- edge. To each of them, named or not in these pages, I owe a tremendous debt of gratitude. A few individuals refused to be thanked even anonymously. You know who you are. In the Philippines, I am thankful for the hospitality of numerous indi- viduals and institutions, starting with my tita, Techie Dela-Cruz, who never fails to take me in, no matter how long of a lapse it’s been. Del Fernandez, Helen Mendoza, and Mayet Ramos have also fed and sheltered me at various times in the years I’ve been returning to . In Lipa, the sisters of Lipa Carmel graciously allowed me to stay in their guesthouse on several occa- sions, providing solace and sanctuary in what were often intense periods of research. Archival and library research for this book was conducted in the Philippines, Spain, and the United States, and I am deeply grateful to all those who assisted me in tasks great and small. For allowing special ac- cess to archives and private collections or showing especial alacrity, I wish to specifically mention Michael C. Francisco, chief of the Archives Collec- tion and Access Division, National Archives of the Philippines; Lulu del Mar (formerly with the Archivo of the University of Santo Tomas, Manila); Ber- nie Sobremonte (Archdiocesan Archives of Manila); Angelli Tugado at Philip- pine Studies: Historical and Ethnographic Viewpoints; Fr. Carlo Ilagan, former viii acknowledgments director of Our Lady of Caysasay Academy; Fr. Gaspar Sigaya, O.P., previ- ously at the Museum of Shrine; Ms. Teresita Castillo; the late Mr. Francisco Dychangco of San Pablo, Laguna; Sr. Mary Grace, O.C.D., former mother superior of Lipa Carmel; the late Sr. Bernadette, O.C.D.; Sr. Mary Fides, O.C.D.; Fr. Jordi Roca, S.J., director of the Arxiu Històric de la Companyia de Jesús a Catalunya (Barcelona); Fr. Policarpo Hernández, O.S.A., and the late Rev. Fr. Isacio Rodriguez, O.S.A., prolific scholars in their own right, of the Archivo de la Provincia Agustiniana de Filipinas (Valladolid, Spain); and David Goodrich at the Archives of the Holy Cross Family Ministries in North Easton, Massachusetts. In the Philippines, invaluable research assistance was provided at various stages by Joy Ma- carandang, Rose Mendoza, and Raissa Rivera, and Maria Cleofe Marpa re- viewed my translations of older Tagalog-language works. Books may be written in solitude, but they are conceived and rethought in hallways and classrooms, in Q&As and car rides, over coffee and cocktails. At Columbia University and Cornell University this book first took shape when I studied under an extraordinary group of faculty. I owe a lot to Rosa- lind Morris’s generous guidance and scholarship on religion and media; she asked me questions I still haven’t answered to my best satisfaction. Michael Taussig’s heterodox approach to ethnography instilled in me new ways of thinking about the miraculous, the sacred, and the profane. Marilyn Ivy’s readings of the uncanny in Japanese modernity inspired some of my own interpretations of phenomena in this very different context. As an anthropo- logical work, this book was deeply influenced by seminars I took at Cornell with James T. Siegel in 1998 and 2005. Despite its transnational scope and examination of universals, as a book that is still, at heart, about the Philip- pine nation, it is greatly indebted to Benedict Anderson. More than anyone else before or since, John Pemberton showed me how to think and write at the intersections of anthropology and history, and for more than twenty years I have counted on him as a mentor and friend. The global community of Philippines specialists has provided me with much inspiration, insight, and opportunity for the development of this book. In addition to those scholars I acknowledge by way of citation, I wish to thank here Filomeno (Jun) Aguilar, Oscar Campomanes, Michael Cullinane, the late Doreen Fernandez, Fr. Mario Francisco, S.J., Francis Gealogo, Susan Go, Reynaldo Ileto, Regalado T. Jose, Ricardo T. Jose, Resil Mojares, Am- beth Ocampo, and Luciano Santiago. For engaging in sustained conversa- tions about the Philippines and the vicissitudes of its study, I am grateful to Megan C. Thomas and Smita Lahiri. Vicente Rafael continues to set the acknowledgments ix highest of standards for engaged and critical studies of the Philippines, and I always appreciate the chance to talk with him about my work and get his feedback. I thank the two experts in Philippine Christianity who reviewed this book’s manuscript and provided constructive criticisms, helpful advice, and overall support; Fenella Cannell disclosed to me that she was one of these reviewers, and I thank her personally for her generous engagement. In the end, of course, I alone am responsible for any errors herein. The University of Michigan has been my institutional home for almost a decade, and participation in its many intellectual communities has trans- formed my work in numerous ways. A postdoctoral fellowship in the Society of Fellows provided me with a vibrant community of peers and the luxury of actually setting this project aside for a time, which allowed for new di- mensions of the study to germinate and develop. I am deeply grateful to Donald S. Lopez Jr., first in his capacity as chair of the Society of Fellows and now as chair of the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, for protecting my time, for his unstinting confidence in me, and for his guid- ance in professional matters great and small. In the small city that is the Department of History, former and current chairs Geoff Eley and Kathleen Canning have provided valuable opportunities for me to contribute to the department and thus feel like I truly belong. I have gained so much from my interactions with colleagues in both departments, in the dynamic Doctoral Program in Anthropology and History, and elsewhere on campus, but allow me to single out and thank here Micah Auerback, Varuni Bhatia, Ben Brose, Miranda Brown, Christi- Anne Castro, Katherine French, Zeny Fulgencio, Paul Johnson, Webb Keane, S. E. Kile, Matt Lassiter, Alaina Lemon, Tomoko Masuzawa, Victor Mendoza, Rudolf Mrázek, Rachel Neis, Markus Nornes, Esperanza Ramirez- Christiansen, Youngju Ryu, Andrew Shryock, Carla Si- nopoli, Xiaobing Tang, Deling Weller, and Jonathan Zwicker. The adminis- trative staff of both ALC and History have been instrumental in helping me achieve that mythical work-life balance everyone talks about, plus they make working in the office in the summer a little less lonely. It is quite possible, finally, that I would not be at Michigan now were it not for fellow Southeast Asianist Nancy Florida. Beyond having read and commented extensively on the entire manuscript, for which I am so thankful, Nancy has become a most valued interlocutor, cherished mentor, and friend. I am grateful for the invitations to present portions of this work at the Eisenberg Institute for Historical Studies, the Doctoral Program in Anthro- pology and History and the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at the Univer- sity of Michigan, the Department of Communication and Culture at Indiana x acknowledgments

University Bloomington, the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at the Uni- versity of Wisconsin–Madison, the Center for Religion and Civic Culture at the University of Southern California, the Max Planck Institute for Human Development (Berlin), the Department of History at the Ateneo de Manila University, the “Kritika Kultura” lecture series at the Ateneo de Manila Uni- versity, the Department of Anthropology and Center for Philippine Studies at the University of Hawai‛i, the International Graduate Program at the Uni- versity of Stockholm, and the Department of Anthropology and Southeast Asia Program at Cornell University. Audiences at these and other confer- ence presentations provided invaluable feedback. In 2007 and 2008 I had the great fortune of participating in a workshop sponsored by the National Humanities Center that brought together scholars across disciplines and from around the world who studied visionary phenomena. Convened by historians of Christianity William A. Christian Jr. and Gábor Klaniczay, “The Vision Thing: Studying Divine Intervention” had a profound influence on the direction this book ended up taking and brought me into an ambit of camaraderie that is lamentably now more virtual than actual, but meaning- ful all the same. I owe Bill in particular a profound debt of gratitude for the relevant material and artifacts he has sent me over the years, for connecting me with other scholars, for reading and commenting on the manuscript in its entirety, and most of all, for his friendship. In addition to those fellowship programs already mentioned, a number of institutions and grantors made the research and writing of this book possible. These include Columbia University, the Tokyo Foundation, the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowship, a Charlotte Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship from the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, the International Institute of Asian Studies (Leiden), the Asian Studies Center at the University of the Philippines, the Philippine- American Educational Foundation, the Institute for the Humanities at the University of Michigan, and the University of Michigan. Financial support for this publication was generously provided by the Faculty Grants and Awards Program of the Uni- versity of Michigan’s Office of Research. Previous versions of some sections of this book can be found in the following publications: “Coincidence and Consequence: Marianism and the Mass Media in the Global Philippines,” Cultural Anthropology 24, no. 3 (2009): 455– 88; “From the Power of Prayer to Prayer Power: On Religion and Revolt in the Modern Philippines,” in Southeast Asian Perspectives on Power, ed. Lee Wilson, Liana Chua, Joanne Cook, and Nick Long (London: Routledge, 2012), 165–80; and “The Mass acknowledgments xi

Miracle: Public Religion in the Postwar Philippines,” Philippine Studies: His- torical and Ethnographic Viewpoints 62, nos. 3–4 (2014): 425–44, published by the Ateneo de Manila University. Permission to print from each of these is gratefully acknowledged. My heartfelt thanks go to the editors, editorial assistants, and others who whipped the final version of this book into shape. Freelance editor Kim Greenwell did a beautiful job uncluttering the manuscript and drawing out my strengths as a writer. Kim also prepared the index, for which I am ever so grateful. I thank Ian Ting, who designed the graphic in chapter 5 at a moment’s notice. At the University of Chicago Press, Priya Nelson com- pletely demystified the process of publishing a book, keeping me informed every step of the way, and there was no query too neurotic to be fielded ably and patiently by Ellen Kladky. Working with them and Katherine Faydash has been a true pleasure and a wholly positive experience. It brings me great relief and joy to finally be able to thank the friends and loved ones who have nourished and sustained me from near and far throughout the years that I have been working on this book. Thomas Abowd, Cy Calugay, Maki Fukuoka, Nina Hien, Smita Lahiri, Zack Linmark, Lisa Mitchell, Amira Mittermaier, Mira Tabasinske, and Megan Thomas have always been there for me, no matter how much time has passed since we last spoke. It gives me strength just knowing I can always reach out to them for support. As dinner parties have turned to play dates, Javier Castro, Mayte Green- Mercado, Hussein Fancy, Jane Lynch, Christi Merrill, and Dan Cutler continue to make Ann Arbor feel like home. Kelly Kempter and Lena Ehrlich create the space for me to attend to body and mind. Miquel Ruiz reminds me that being vulnerable is not a weakness but a need, and I’m so glad he found me again. Four strong, beautiful ladies have been my emotional an- chors in recent months, and my unending thanks go to Evelyn Alsultany, Kate Gordy, Mayte Green-Mercado, and Shobita Parthasarathy for their life- affirming support. I honestly don’t know what I would do without them. For providing our son with stable homes-away- from- home, I thank Hong- mei Delosh, June Depa, Inez Kaufman, Sherrie Hunninghake, Steve and Wendie Ryter, Dave and Marcie de la Cruz, and Roy and Rochelle de la Cruz. My mom and dad have shown me their love and unequivocal support through the best and worst of times, and I hope they fully share in this ac- complishment as a way of accepting my gratitude. So different from each other but still so much my brothers, Dave and Marc de la Cruz have come to my defense as only siblings can, and I love them for it. It’s a little scary to think that I’ve been working on this project for longer than Micah and xii acknowledgments

Malia, my tween nephew and niece, have been around, but I have enjoyed watching them grow up and am touched by how sweet they are with their little cousin. Loren Ryter lived with me living with this book since its incep- tion, and he has borne the burden of its completion in more ways than I can name. I am grateful for the many ways he has supported me over the years. And Kai, my little ocean, my builder of worlds real and imaginary, assures me in ways both tender and hilarious that imperfect is the best kind of mama to be. This book is for him.