Copyright by Elizabeth H. LeFlore 2009 The Dissertation Committee for Elizabeth Hawthorne LeFlore Certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: The Force of Devotion: Performing a Transnational Spirituality Committee: Pauline Turner Strong, Supervisor Richard R. Flores, Co-Supervisor Phyllis M. Correa James H. McDonald Martha Menchaca Kathleen Stewart The Force of Devotion: Performing a Transnational Spirituality by Elizabeth Hawthorne LeFlore, B.A., M.A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin May 2009 Dedication Para la gente de Empalme Escobedo, Guanajuato, México Acknowledgements This dissertation would not have been possible without the participation, guidance and affection of the women, men and children of the Empalme Escobedo transnational community. I will always remember and appreciate the warm welcome I received into the homes, lives and families of Chelo, Teresa and Maria del Carmen during my first fiesta for San Isidro Labrador in 1999. Over the last ten years my life has been greatly enhanced by my experiences in Empalme Escobedo and my relationships have grown more meaningful with these remarkable families. Mil gracias y abrazos fuertes to Teresa, Chelo, Maria del Carmen, Claudia, Paco, Mari Elena, Lulu, Oscar, Alicia, Picho, Chayo, Davíd, Socorro, Candi, Juan, Willy, Monica, Nico, Don Euphemio, Marta, Cristina, Marisol, Coco, Guadalupe, Teresa R. and countless other friends I was lucky to have met in pursuit of this research. I am inspired and influenced by the work of my dissertation committee. Thank you to Pauline Turner Strong, Richard Flores, Martha Menchaca, Kathleen Stewart, Phyllis Correa and James McDonald (who first introduced me to the community of Empalme Escobedo). I am grateful to the faculty, staff and my colleagues in the department of Anthropology at the University of Texas at Austin, particularly the Américo Paredes Center for Cultural Studies. Special thanks go to Tessa Farmer for her enormous friendship and insightful suggestions; Mathangi Krishnamurthy for her provocative questions and instructive ideas; and Tim Craig for sharing the experience of fieldwork in Guanajuato and conversations over caguamas in San Miguel de Allende. v I greatly appreciate the fellowships and institutions that provided support for this dissertation project: The E.D. Farmer International Fellowship, The Mexican Center, Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies, University of Texas at Austin; the Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Program, United States Department of Education; the David Bruton Jr. Graduate Fellowship, University of Texas at Austin; and the P.E.O. Scholar Award, Philanthropic Educational Organization (P.E.O.) International. My magnificent family has provided immeasurable encouragement, humor, comfort, distraction, and (most of all) love throughout this long and arduous journey. I profoundly thank my adoring mother, Susan Carnahan; my devoted father, Doug Hawthorne; and my best friend and sister, Megan McGuire. The hard work and great knowledge of my grandparents affected my graduate career. This dissertation is dedicated in memoriam to my maternal grandparents, Adele and Richard Carnahan, who passed away within a week of each other as I arrived in Mexico in 2005, and my paternal grandmother, Katherine Hawthorne, who passed away a month after I returned from the field in 2007. I also thank all my aunts, uncles, cousins and in-laws for their love and support. At the risk of embarrassment, I must recognize the beneficial affection of my cat, Bella, who traveled to and from Empalme Escobedo and spent almost as many hours at my desk “working on” this dissertation as I have. Finally, I thank my husband, Campbell…whose patience, intelligence, calm and wit have given me strength to endure the difficult moments and energy to enjoy the little successes. You are becoming an ethnographer in your own right. With love and confidence you teach me, stand by me, and make me smile. vi The Force of Devotion: Performing a Transnational Spirituality Publication No._____________ Elizabeth Hawthorne LeFlore, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2009 Supervisor: Pauline Turner Strong Co-Supervisor: Richard R. Flores This dissertation explores the role of popular religion in a transnational community by examining the performance of devotion to local patron saints, virgin mothers and sacred crosses. Annually in May, Empalme Escobedo, Guanajuato, Mexico celebrates San Isidro Labrador (the patron saint of farmers), Maria Auxiliadora (the patroness of railroad laborers) and the Santa Cruz de Picacho (Sacred Cross of Picacho). Following the celebrations many of the male participants in the fiestas travel to Texas to work in agriculture or the service industry. Consequently, devotion to the saint(s) moves with migrants back and forth across the Mexican-U.S. border. My thesis is that the force of devotion gives voice to the tension between the desire for solidarity (experienced through fiesta performance) and the erosion of the community by migration (experienced as absence and dissolution). What I call the force of devotion refers to the social processes, expressive culture, continuity and change that make up a transnational community’s system of beliefs and practices and enable folks to understand, explain or cope with everyday life. The force of devotion is the key analytic vii frame through which I interpret the articulations of spirituality and popular religion, impermanence and fragmentation, absence and hope. The central questions posed in this dissertation emerge from the stories folks in Empalme Escobedo tell about their lives. Consultants talk about their devotion as an expression of faith, a necessary guidance through daily life and a symbol of hope. Tracking the force of devotion exposes social relationships, emotional and intimate experiences, desires and fears. Memory of and participation in the fiestas not only symbolize the force of devotion, but also serve as a connection to separated family members and place of origin. The everyday reality of the absence of loved ones and the fragmentation of the community as a result of migration amplifies the human desire for sociability and solidarity. The fiesta performance provides a space in which the consciousness of communal boundaries is heightened, thereby confirming and strengthening the experience of the social and the force of devotion. viii Table of Contents List of Figures........................................................................................................ xi CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION......................................................................1 The Bajío Region of Mexico...........................................................................7 Empalme Escobedo, Guanajuato, Mexico....................................................11 Transnationalism: Mexican Migration to the U.S.........................................27 Expressive Culture: Popular Religion and Fiesta Performance....................30 Anthropology of Emotion, Memory and Affect ...........................................33 Fieldwork ......................................................................................................37 Methodology.................................................................................................41 Orientation of Argument...............................................................................45 CHAPTER TWO: THE FORCE OF DEVOTION................................................48 “La Fe Mueve Montañas y Fronteras”..........................................................57 “¡Qué Milagroso es la Santa Cruz de Picacho!”...........................................60 La Santa Cruz de Picacho: Ambivalence, Irony and Contradiction .............66 Spiritual Labor ..............................................................................................83 CHAPTER THREE: OUR MOST BLESSED MOTHER AUXILIARY MARY, PATRONESS OF THE RAILROAD LABORERS .....................................86 People in Motion, Things in Motion.............................................................88 Impermanence and Fragmentation................................................................94 “Debe Ser Afectivo y Efectivo”....................................................................96 Modernity, Mobility and Change................................................................101 Marian Devotion .........................................................................................105 Sexuality, Sin, Saintly Devotion.................................................................107 CHAPTER FOUR: TRANSNATIONAL MIGRATION....................................115 Mexican Migration to the United States .....................................................119 Transnational Families................................................................................123 Transnational Communities........................................................................128 International Agricultural Restructuring and Migration.............................137 The Meanings of Absence and Presence ....................................................144 Santo Niño de Las Maravillas.....................................................................147 ix The Catholic Church and Immigration Policy Reform...............................153