Catholic Borderlands Catholic Borderlands Mapping Catholicism onto American Empire, 1905– 1935 anne m. martínez ✜ University of Nebraska Press Lincoln & London © 2014 by the Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska Publication of this volume was assisted by a grant from the Office of the Vice President for Research at the University of Texas at Austin. The illustrations in this volume are courtesy of Loyola University Chicago Archives and Special Collections. All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data Martínez, Anne M., 1966– Catholic borderlands: mapping Catholicism onto American empire, 1905– 1935 / Anne M. Martínez. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 978- 0- 8032- 4877- 9 (cloth: alk. paper) isbn 978- 0- 8032- 7409- 9 (epub) isbn 978- 0- 8032- 7410- 5 (mobi) isbn 978- 0- 8032- 7408- 2 (pdf) 1. Catholic Church Extension Society of the United States of America— History. 2. Catholic Church— United States— History— 20th century. 3. Catholic Church— Missions— United States. 4. Kelley, Francis Clement, 1870– 1948. 5. Catholic Church— Mexico. I. Title. bv2190.m37 2014 282'.709041— dc23 2014019188 Set in Adobe Garamond Pro by L. Auten. For my first teachers, Mom and Pop, and my favorite students, Hadley, James, John, Marianna, Christina, and Michael Contents List of Illustrations ix Preface xi Acknowledgments xiii Introduction: Excavating the Borderlands 1 1. An American Catholic Borderlands: The Spanish Past in the United States 31 2. The Devil Is Having a Great Time: The U.S. Catholic Civilizing Mission in Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and Mexico 71 3. Religious Monroeism: U.S. Catholic Influence and Intervention in Mexico 99 4. An American Catholic Diplomacy: Expanding Catholic Borderlands 125 5. Crisis in the Catholic Borderlands: The International Eucharistic Congress and the Cristero Rebellion 143 6. Preaching Mestizaje: Catholicism and Race in the Catholic Borderlands 176 Conclusion: Religion in the Borderlands 215 Notes 223 Bibliography 263 Index 285 Illustrations 1. Juanita and John Barr 32 2. Juanita and Father Corbin 32 3. Board of Governors, Extension Society 37 4. Extension Magazine cover, May 1908 45 5. Motor chapel “St. Peter,” Salado, Texas 56 6. Motor chapel “St. Peter,” Belto’s Mine, Texas 56 7. Mexican Catholic procession, Benavides, Texas 59 8. St. Patrick’s Chapel, Bynum, Montana 59 9. Eskimo acolytes, Mary’s Igloo, Alaska 60 10. Music class, Pine Bluff, Arkansas 61 11. Town layout, Metcalf (Clifton- Morenci), Arizona 62 12. Town layout, Metcalf (Clifton- Morenci), Arizona 62 13. Church ruins, Agueda, Puerto Rico 78 14. School procession, Ilocus, Philippine Islands 81 15. Newly baptized “savages,” Tiguan, Philippine Islands 82 16. Christmas pageant, Tamag, Philippine Islands 86 17. Nun, Philippine Islands 87 18. Advertisement for The Book of Red and Yellow 89 19. Francis C. Kelley, San Felipe de Neri Seminary, Castroville, Texas 93 20. Students, San Felipe de Neri Seminary, Castroville, Texas 93 ix 21. Sisters in exile, San Felipe de Neri Seminary, Castroville, Texas 94 22. Extension Magazine cover, April 1917 97 23. Cardinal John Bonzano, International Eucharistic Congress, Mundelein, Illinois 152 24. Priests and onlookers, International Eucharistic Congress, Chicago, Illinois 153 25. Sioux Indians, International Eucharistic Congress, Chicago, Illinois 154 26. Exiled nuns arriving in Texas in disguise 159 x Preface As a senior in high school I visited the University of Michigan, where I had been admitted and where my brother, David, was a graduate student in the School of Music. While David was busy one morn- ing, I had a lengthy conversation with Zaragosa Vargas, who was finishing his PhD in American culture at Michigan. I still remem- ber Zaragosa saying to me, “You can do for Chicago what I’m doing for Detroit.” At the time, I had absolutely no idea what he meant and was too polite (or too dense) to ask him to clarify. A year later, after an inauspicious start as an astronomy major at Michigan, I registered for a class in Chicano history, taught by John R. Chávez. In that course I learned that my family’s arrival in Chicago in the 1910s was part of a much broader story of migration north after the Mexican Revolution; that their “return” to Mexico in 1930 was part of a mass repatriation of Mexicans; and that their subsequent “return” to Chicago in 1944 was driven by shifts in the economy during World War II. I came to understand what Zara- gosa had said to me a year earlier, and with him as my first mentor I began my journey to unwrap this era in Mexican American his- tory. I invested years of blood, sweat, and tears into the establish- ment of the Latino studies program at Michigan and learned from the experiences and guidance of Zaragosa, John, Frances Aparicio, Hector Delgado, Neil F. Foley, Margarita de la Vega Hurtado, Raúl Villa, and Enid Zimmerman. After doing a few other things, I started graduate school intending to write a social history of Mexican Chicago in the 1910s and 1920s. I recalled vivid stories my great- uncle Librado Rivera told, often in xi Preface Spanish, later repeated to us in English. Librado was born in 1903 and left for the United States thirteen years later. He was old enough to remember the Revolution, as well as the journey north, which his sister, Ramona— my beloved Abuela— four years younger, did not recall in great detail. I was fascinated by the strength and determi- nation of this generation and wanted to tell their story. My first research trip to Chicago after I started graduate school included a visit to Louise Año Nuevo Kerr, whose well- worn (and autographed!) dissertation on Mexican Chicago still sits on my book- shelf. Louise suggested I start at the diocesan archives, since she had not been able to access church records for her study. Days later, at the Archdiocese of Chicago’s Joseph Cardinal Bernardin Archives and Records Center, I perused the reading room bookshelves while waiting for my requested documents to be delivered. The provoca- tively title Blood- Drenched Altars demanded to be pulled from the shelf. In those few minutes flipping through the pages, as I awaited parish annual reports, Francis Clement Kelley captured my imagi- nation and never let go. My fascination with Blood- Drenched Altars intersected with my earlier interests to produce Catholic Borderlands, which provides an even broader context for my family history. This is an institutional, intellectual, cultural, and diplomatic history of U.S. Catholic inter- est and involvement in Mexico, led in this era by Francis Kelley. My immersion in this project has led me to place Catholicism at the center of my scholarly work, a development I had not antici- pated, but it seems more than overdue in Mexican American stud- ies. I look forward to returning to a social and cultural history of Mexicans in Catholic Chicago in my future work. xii Acknowledgments This book began as a doctoral dissertation in American studies at the University of Minnesota under the guidance of Catherine Ceniza Choy, David W. Noble, Jean O’Brien, Dave Roediger, and Zara- gosa Vargas. My dissertation research and writing were funded by the Louisville Institute, the Erasmus Institute at the University of Notre Dame, and the Department of American Studies, the Grad- uate School, and the Race, Ethnicity, and Migration Seminar at the University of Minnesota. I am grateful for research support from the Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture at the Uni- versity of Chicago, Latina/Latino Studies and the Department of History at the University of Illinois, Urbana- Champaign, and the College of Liberal Arts, the Department of History, the Institute for Historical Studies, the Center for Mexican American Studies, the C. B. Smith, Sr. Centennial Chair in U.S.- Mexico Relations, and the Walter Prescott Webb Chair in American History at the Uni- versity of Texas at Austin. I received guidance and support from countless mentors and friends at my fellowship and other stopovers before landing at the University of Texas at Austin. At the University of Michigan, Fran- ces Aparicio, John R. Chávez, Mark Chesler, Neil F. Foley, Peggie Hollingsworth, Conrad Kottak, Charles D. Moody, Sr., Maxwell Owusu, Raúl Villa, and Zaragosa Vargas inspired my path into the academy, for which I long ago forgave them. In my work life before graduate school, Carol J. Guardo provided valuable direction, and she continues to be my sounding board for all things professional. I received immeasurable support from Nancy “Rusty” Barceló, Edén xiii Acknowledgments Torres, and Dionicio Nodín Valdés while in the Twin Cities. At the University of Notre Dame, Kathleen Sprows Cummings, Suellen Hoy, Paul Kollman, Timothy Matovina, John McGreevy, and Jerry Poyo made me feel welcome in a foreign land. In my short stay at the University of Illinois, Urbana- Champaign, Jenny Barrett, Jim Bar- rett, Antoinette Burton, Barrington Edwards, Eileen Diaz McCon- nell, Kristin Hoganson, Alejandro Lugo, Martina Miranda- Lugo, Isabel Molina Guzman, Kathy Oberdeck, Cynthia Radding, and my Latina/o students provided great support and good cheer. I was fortunate to be a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture at the University of Chicago. I cannot thank Cathy Cohen enough for the opportunity and for mentor- ing me during my time there. I am grateful to have spent time with Emilio Kourí, Mae Ngai, and long- lost fellow traveler Tracye Mat- thews while there. My work on this project was interrupted by five years of health crises. My team at Sports Performance International (spi), espe- cially Ariel Quintana, got me through months of rehab following a broken ankle. Dr.