LDS Hispanic Americans and Lamanite Identity tyler balli Tyler Balli (
[email protected]) is a master’s student in history at Virginia Tech. n September 1972, the Ensign published a piece called “What Is a ILamanite?” Using an “imaginary conversation” between different indi- viduals of Latin American descent and a Church leader, this article got to the heart of the complexity of Lamanite identification within The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.1 When this piece was published in the 1970s—and even long before—some Church leaders strongly encouraged Hispanics to identify as Lamanites, a name referring to a people found in the Church’s founding scripture—the Book of Mormon. Even with the Church’s encouragement, however, not all Hispanics jumped to identify as Lamanites. The “What Is a Lamanite?” piece is one of the only documents during the President Spencer W. Kimball time period that explored the diversity of beliefs about this term among Hispanics; it was “an important, if not over- looked, reminder that not all Saints whom Church leaders such as Kimball saw as Lamanites understood themselves in those same terms.”2 This paper seeks to recover some of the diversity and complexity expressed Pixabay. in that article and to add further depth, context, and perspective. Hispanics, “Lamanite” carries with it several connotations, and the degree to which Hispanics identify with it varies greatly, depending on the specific factors that influenced them, held an incredible from wholehearted and enthusiastic acceptance to a complete lack of identification. RE · VOL. 19 NO. 3 · 2018 · 93–11593 94 Religious Educator ·VOL.19NO.3·2018 LDS Hispanic Americans and Lamanite Identity 95 variety of ideas regarding Lamanite identity by the decade of 1990.