Resources by Neomi DeAnda

This blogpost is a conversation between Kimberly Diaz, University of California Riverside, Michael DeAnda, DePaul University, and Neomi DeAnda, University of Dayton. KIM: Neomi, how did the Loteria session at the AAR come to be? NEOMI: This year marked the twentieth anniversary of the first time I attended the American Academy of Religion (AAR). Having a background in education and strongly believing that humans learn differently, I always questioned the ninety-minute and two-and-a-half-hour session format of presented papers for all sessions. Five days of these sessions bookended with breakfast meetings and receptions has always felt exhausting to me. Over the years, the suggestion of doing something different has arisen. While I have participated in other types of sessions like roundtable discussions and generative sessions, I wondered how I could entertain comments about doing something radically different at multiple sections’ business meetings. Last December, I found the game Millennial Loteria: Gen Z Edition at a big box merchant in Chicago, Illinois and Dayton, Ohio. I initially bought the game to incorporate into my Latina/Latino Religious Experience undergraduate course at the University of Dayton. This game provided an in-class common experience from which to build the semester. The course participants enjoyed, appreciated, and questioned the game. That same day, I posted a picture of the game on social media, igniting a quick discussion about the game itself. I was overjoyed to see such a response about something both so close and so new to my Tejana experience. The topic of immigration often takes center stage when the AAR and Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) meet in San Antonio. I am often frustrated about the lack of thought given to the plurality of possible topics which could thrive while meeting at this particular geographical location. Horacio Vela, session panelist, astutely remarked, “Loteria helps us appreciate the historical and evolving nature of Mexican-American cultures, identities, and religions. It also opens our eyes to the ways that Latina/o/x communities have handed down and scripturalized stereotypes about race, ethnicity, and gender.” The conversation on social media presented one such opportunity. From there, the idea was born to play the game at a session of the AAR. MICHAEL: How did you envision the format of playing Loteria in a conference session and what did you do to prepare? NEOMI: Carmen Nanko-Fernandez connected me with the co-chairs of the Religion, Sport and Play Unit, Kimberly Diaz and Jeffery Scholes. They were very amenable to helping me work through a proposal to submit to their call. The Experiential Session Playing Millennial Gen Z Loteria which was held Sunday, 3:00 PM - 4:30 PM in the San Antonio Convention Center-Room 225C (Meeting Room Level) came from that accepted proposal. The proposal recommended the following format for the session: play the game panelists respond group discussion. The day for the session arrived. I had conjured prizes from various tables in the AAR/SBL book exhibit and from a Wabash Center luncheon the day before. Keri Liechty from the Louisville Institute brought swag from their office. MICHAEL: Very cool. That’s a nod to kermeses, a site where Loteria is often played and the prizes are often donated tchotchkes and trinkets fished out of storage. Your approach is totally emulating the found-and-sourced prizes spirit. Tell me how the session went? NEOMI: The tone in the room was different from the beginning as game boards and emoji tokens (instead of frijoles) were handed out to session participants. I set the rules. Structured play. The play during the session would end when the last of the prizes was collected. After two rounds, it seemed the third round could be the last. The participants changed the rules when play was going to end sooner than they wished. During the session, the energy in the room dampened between playing the game and the initial responses. So the session followed a modified format: play the game initial responses from three panelists play the game group discussion. The emoji tokens were later labeled chingaderitas by panelist Gilberto Cavazos-Gonzalez. Session participants remarked about the relaxation they felt from play during an AAR session. I noticed the session attendants, most of whom did not know each other upon entering the space, quickly formed a community to continue play. NEOMI: Any reflections on theory, Michael? MICHAEL: It’s interesting to see how incorporating the game into this session really invited the play spirit for the entirety of the session and appropriated the space. It’s like you went total kermes at the AAR! This is what I love about games: They can be tools to restructure and rethink what’s possible. In your case, Loteria provided enough of a ludic structure to bring energy into the room, invite people to socialize, and allow people to unmask. I want to note that it was smart to pivot at the request of players, granting them agency in this. Furthermore, for critical game play, multiple rounds of playing a game are important. The first playthrough we are often consumed by the game, so this was a great way to familiarize people with the game. The initial responses then primed participants to approach gameplay with the criticality to then contribute to the group discussion. Games are ludic structures with potential to reimagine how we make meaning. It’s the meaning that we create in and through games that make them so potent. Think about a game like Ticket To Ride, for example. The literal actions sound quite lackluster (drawing cards, placing blocks on a board). However, the hermeneutics give meaning to these mundane tasks: laying blocks emulates building railroad tracks. Games of chance are good for providing just enough of a ludic structure while still allowing for socializing, but not too much that it’s all people focus on. So, folks can chat, and if they reach a lull in the conversation, they can lean on playing the game during the shift in their conversation. It’s also worth mentioning that play extended beyond the game Loteria in the session. This included participants playing with the format of the session, players influencing the restructuring of the session, and playing with language deployed at a conference (yes, the swearing). As we play, we perform and we also confront truths about ourselves. Horacio commented, “Playing and talking about loteria in the AAR session brought back memories of growing up in south Texas. It was also a welcome and refreshing alternative to the typical AAR/SBL panel, with just as much, if not more, scholarly discourse and analysis.” Horacio continued, “Newer versions of loteria challenge us to discuss, critique, and reshape our communities and cultures, which have always been characterized by diverse experiences and interpretations.” NEOMI: Kim, please tell us about your experience immediately following the session as well as your thoughts since. KIM: The experiential session of playing Millennial Gen Z Loteria was immediately followed by the business meeting for the Religion, Sport, and Play Unit. In between the sessions, I rushed to my unit co-chair, Jeffrey Scholes, eager to exchange thoughts about having just played Loteria at the AAR. Instantaneously, we agreed that this experiential session encouraged us to take a more practical approach to the third integral aspect of the unit: play. As far as we both knew, the Religion, Sport, and Play Unit had always approached play in terms of discourse, especially in the context of organized athletics, but never with the actual practice of play during a session. At the beginning of the business meeting, our first order of business was to confirm the ongoing use of experiential sessions of play at future AAR annual meetings. The way in which the experiential session of Loteria radically transformed the trajectory of the Religion, Sport, and Play unit demonstrates how actual play within the conference setting can help ground the decolonization of academia. As Neomi observed, Loteria participants quickly transformed from serious individual conference attendees into a group of light-hearted players who cared more about playing together than claiming the prizes and ending the game. Recalling my own experience, I vividly remember being hunched over, placing tokens on my Loteria card as Neomi called out Millennial Gen Z phrases from a stack of shuffled cards. My body positioned itself as it needed to, helping optimize my gameplay rather than unconsciously following Western constructs of professional bodily posture (such as sitting up straight with my legs crossed). Overall, this experiential session of play fostered a communal space where participants transcended the optics of Western professionalism and became immersed in the carefree spirit of play. Playing Loteria at the AAR was not merely a form of escapism, but, like every decolonial praxis, existed in the liminal plane between colonial hegemony and resistance. Throughout history many decolonial efforts have been led by women of color and Neomi leading the experiential session contributes to this history. But decolonial efforts should not be the sole responsibility of those on the margins, such as women of color in a heavily white/male dominated field. NEOMI: Great point connecting back to this year’s AAR theme of “La Labor de Nuestras Manos”! KIM: Yes. Why should we, as women of color, be the ones to bear this responsibility, especially in a way that caters to the comfortability of those beyond ourselves? What about exploring other generative effects, like discomfort and unfamiliarity, initiated by the more privileged rather than the labor of the oppressed? To continuously move toward resistance, particularly in the context of experiential sessions, religious studies scholars must actively challenge the pretense that their scholarly work inherently makes the world a better place, and become intentional about practically contributing to decolonization, especially as it transcends the comfortability of their own individualism. In the words of black lesbian poet Audre Lorde, “Without community there is no liberation, only the most vulnerable and temporary armistice between an individual and her oppression.” NEOMI: Fascinating! I did not see it as a decolonial praxis but as living in my own Tejana space. I honestly saw the session as something that comes from being Mexican-American, Chicana, Tejana. I loved being able to bring cookies as prizes to share, cookies which our parents had made during Michael and my father’s occupational therapy, as he learns to live life after stroke. The convention center was no wiser that I did not ask permission or order the cookies from their vendor. As Gilberto Cavazos-Gonzalez, session panelist, noted, “I was happy to be a part of this Loteria session. Although I did not recognize the Loteria images (I missed my Chalupa) it was still a trip down memory lane and the importance of play in family life and spirituality. It also helped me make the connection to the importance of cultural connections for Mexican Americans living in a sometimes hostile and racist U.S.A. environment.” There is something about play which allows for simultaneous space (re)creation, mockery, and truth-telling. MICHAEL: Play is like alchemy: it has deep transformative potential. Kim’s reflection on decolonizing underscores this, especially when she draws attention to exploring generative effects, as does Neomi’s approach to developing the session to reflect and live in Tejana space. Games afford ludic structures for play to happen.

The religious imagery in the movie Blue Beetle is arguably the most overt I have seen in a superhero movie.[i] This is so interesting because religious imagery is almost non-existent in the comic book series. One of my favorite parts of this movie arises in the character of Nana (who I would call Welita in my life – yes with a “W”) and others may call abuela. For years I have claimed that I am an abuelita theologian in training. I have taken the attributes of my own grandmothers as well as other elders who have mentored me and combined them into a nebulous image of what that means. Nana Reyes in the movie Blue Beetle is incredibly close to my imaginative conjuring. Yara González-Justiniano lists the grandmother trope as a “Feminist Theme” and claims, “The cultural and ethnic representation hint[s] at the untold stories of Latinx in US mainstream history, specifically, around military opposition and revolutionary movements. In the movie there is a breaking of the sweet abuela trope, … adding texture to the matriarchs that build these families and the layered histories of relationship to the US and Latin American countries of origin.”[ii] Twice before in the movie when other characters mention fighting, Nana calmly, quietly, with her trenzas raised, says it is not time. She comes across as a passive and unknowing grandmother. She is quietly sewing and listening to her Walkman when the scarab chooses Jaime and begins to transform him. However, when Jaime is most in need and it seems that the Blue Beetle superhero has lost all hope, the matriarch warrior nod to the adelitas Nana drops her trenzas and says this important phrase, “We have turned both cheeks. Now we fight.” This is a direct allusion to Matthew 5:39--“But I say to you, Do not resist the evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also.” Biblical scholars claim that the author of the Gospel of Matthew is using hyperbole in this entire passage, which reads You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you: Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also, and if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, give your coat as well, and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile. Give to the one who asks of you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you. (5:38-42) In reading this passage as hyperbole one sees a power play, in that turning the other cheek is an unexpected move from the aggressor’s perspective. Up to this point in the movie, Jaime has used these unexpected moves when he is resisting the scarab’s desire to kill and Jaime’s freewill overtakes the power of both the aggressor and the scarab. In Nana’s phrase, “We have turned both cheeks. Now we fight,” an interpretation can be seen from the Gospel of Matthew’s use of the word “you” in this passage, “But I say to you: Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also.” To be honest, every time I have heard or read this passage in Matthew prior to watching Blue Beetle, I have always imagined an individual aggressor slapping an individual person, humiliating and dehumanizing them. However, Nana says, “WE.” “We have turned both cheeks.” Woah! What? Que? Como? Que cambio aquí? We? She mentions a collective. In her warrior, militant, fighter-against-injustice mode, Nana foregrounds the collective. In highlighting the collective, she is not only underscoring the fight of the family to save Jaime, she engulfs all of the injustices perpetuated against her peoples for centuries – genocide, culturecide, epistemocide, lingocide, colonization, servitude, enslavement, racism, sexism…. Nana’s words are not a simple allusion to the Gospel of Matthew but a response as a rally call to live out the Gospel. To fight for justice. Nana’s words marshal us to work collectively for a greater possibility. She does not romanticize anything either. Her son was killed in an earlier scene in the movie. The family has lived in a perpetual state of fear due to documentation status unrecognized by the imagined national government. Their drive home includes a left turn on El Paso street in front of a series of pink crosses, a nod of remembrance of the 23 killed and 22 injured in the El Paso massacre of 2019. Wooden crosses such as these exist across the country remembering those who have died too young. Some of these crosses include those placed for migrants who have died in the path toward a better life, crosses placed for farm workers who have died too young from chemical sprays and brutal work, and so many more. The color pink of the crosses seems to be simply so they stand out behind the street sign. The sociocentric pueblo on a journey open to the Spirit synodal call of Nana can also be seen in another phrase repeated through the movie: “Animo.” It sometimes appears alone like the Milagros’ beautiful street art on the front of the Blue Beetle ship. It also appears in the phrase, “Animo. WE can do this!” Here you could make a bit of a Marianist leap to Mary’s “Yes.” The Marianist Charism has a strong basis in Mary’s response to the Angel Gabriel’s invitation to play a particular role in the Incarnation of God, the Second Person of the Trinity, Jesus. I do recognize that I am taking a little creative license, jumping Gospels to make my point. Yet, let’s think for a moment that in the phrase “Animo, We can do this!” not only has the family heard Nana’s response to the Gospel of Matthew as a rally call, they have also responded with mutual affirmation to their collective yes responses. Speaking of Mary, the imagery of Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe is rampant. The largest of the many shrines in the Reyes house is one dedicated to La Guadalupana. This image literally takes center screen when Jaime is morphing into Blue Beetle and aligns eyes with the Guadalupan image. Much has been said about the eyes of Guadalupe, including what seems to be a reflection of Juan Diego and the bishop in her cornea. I do wonder about the use of this image to point to questions of mestizaje. Could the connection between Jaime’s and Guadalupe’s eyes be a recognition of the complexities of the blendings and intermixings of humans which carry a colonial violence, as is the case with the scarab taking over Jaime’s body? The voice of the beetle appearing just as Jaime is recognizing what is happening to him makes me ponder the different ways of interpreting this scene. Could this scene be pointing to large issues between religion and science which are often read as being diametrically opposed? Tío Rudy is both comedic trope and nerd. He is a new embodiment of the chapulín while also creating his own chapulín. He wavers between being a conspiracy theorist and truth-teller. So many of us have a Tío Rudy. My Tío Rudy’s name is José Pepe Joe Melendez. He was my mom’s youngest brother. He died in May of this year at far too young of an age. He spent his life as a semi-truck driver, a gadget collector, and a fiddler with many things electronic and mechanical. When I was young, his room at my grandmother/Godmother’s house looked like a mix between Radio Shack and a pawn shop. I remember him driving up to our house with that same la cucaracha horn! Rest in power, Uncle Joe! Tío Rudy also has a Guadalupe tattoo and is the wisdom leader and knowledge-bearer. He informs the younger generation of the history of El Chapulin and Blue Beetle as well as includes the references to Lucha Libre. Oh, the multiple masks of Mexicans and Mexican American imaginations![iii] Speaking of truth, Milagros declaration to her family – “He’s had his tacos, let him have the truth” – stood out to me, as someone who was the first in her giant extended family to go away to college, to this very beautiful place of St. Mary’s University. All of the way through my education, my family withheld information from me so I would not worry and do poorly in my courses. I saw this movie for the first time with my parents in El Paso this summer, and saw it again the very next day just with my dad. When Millie said this line, I let out a “MMMHMM” so loud in the almost-empty theater that the little girl sitting behind us asked her mom if she heard me. In this scene, Jaime had his taste of home literally in his tacos and figuratively with the entire return. Is it cultural to withhold the truth? Is the truth something to be shared only in certain spaces and places? Might there be an intimacy associated with sharing the truth which distance makes difficult? The family’s last name stands out as a religious symbol – Reyes. Of course this name is plural. It points to the reyes magos (and their camel, like the ones outside of Blume library). Various characters wear jackets with this name. It is the name of the family garage. The reyes magos are the gift bearers in the infancy narrative of Matthew. They are also the protectors. In a dream they learn of Herod’s evil plan and return home a different way so as not to disclose the Holy Family’s location. Also, Christians are baptized as priest, prophet, and king. Finally, because the name is a last name in Blue Beetle, not the singular Rey, it is also gender neutral.[iv] [caption id="attachment_252724" align="alignleft" width="362"] Nana Reyes[/caption] The gentle ebb and flow the movie uses to raise very difficult issues is among the reasons I have seen this movie at least five times. One theme which arises repeatedly can be extrapolated from the quote, “My name is not Sanchez...” This simple quote infers the theme of higher education mixed with all Latinx as being alike. An unspoken understanding exists that diversity includes one person of every racialized category on the US Census and maybe one of those falls under the umbrella of “Hispanic,” which I have been told (when someone has committed the sin of omission against this generic collective created by the same government), is not a race. Once that quota has been met, diversity has reached the level of excellence. And since everyone is the same within any given category, they must all have the same name – or those in power do not need to learn their name. Such is the case with el Doctor José Francisco Morales Rivera de la Cruz. Please note his name ends with “of the cross.” He is clearly a cross-bearer in making the difficult choices of using his education to better himself and probably the expectation of communal raising. He helps the villainous weapon manufacturer through his own research and knowledge, contributing to necropolitical systems which keep him employed and fed. I love that the family uses la bendición throughout the movie. My parents are living with us for the next couple of months. Dad had a stroke followed by a brain hemorrhage in May. They came to stay so we can work more collectively between jobs, housework, and therapy. We have all known that he and Mom would be with us these months. What I did not factor into the equation was the cross they would place on my forehead on Tuesday, blessing me for a safe trip and wisdom to share. I am forty-nine years old and my parents still give me la bendición. It’s a sign of care as well as of collectivity. My travels, work, sharing, and caring are an extension of them and of my community. Every time I used to leave El Paso for college, my grandmother/Godmother would make me get on my knees to give me a blessing. She would recite a litany off the top of her head that seemed to invoke the entire communion of saints. She would include as many of our ancestors as she could name and invoke her mother, aunts, and grandmother. I would begin to laugh, which was partially her goal – to turn a bitter moment to bittersweet. That bendición means I may go far and away but I do not go alone. It reminds me not to fear because I stand on the shoulders of giants, of generations of matriarchs and women leaders. ANIMO! WE CAN DO THIS!   [i] Thank you to Sudabée Lotfian-Mena for the research assistance. For more on the music of the movie Blue Beetle see “Soundtracking ‘Blue Beetle,’” by Sudabée Lotfian-Mena, Hispanic Theological Initiative Open Plaza, November 13, 2023, https://www.htiopenplaza.org/content/sountracking-blue-beetle. [ii] Yara González-Justiniano, “The Blue Beetle: ‘¡No contaban con mi astucia!’” Feminism and Religion, August 8, 2023, https://feminismandreligion.com/2023/08/24/the-blue-beetle-no-contaban-con-mi-astucia-by-yara-gonzalez-justiniano/. [iii] As a little side note, I found the connection between the bugs interesting – la cucaracha, el chapulin Colorado, and the Blue Beetle. I actually spent hours doing deep research on this topic and possible connections. For more, see: Ana María Quiceno Vélez, “De Barthes al Chapulín Colorado. Una Lectura de Los Héroes y Antihéroes Como Configuraciones Míticas,” Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, 2010, https://repository.javeriana.edu.co/bitstream/handle/10554/5525/tesis537.pdf ?sequence=1; Rodrigo Cervantes, “What Do ‘Blue Beetle,’ Quetzalcóatl, and Chapulín Colorado Have in Common?” Los Angeles Times, August 14, 2023, https://www.latimes.com/delos/story/2023-08-14/blue-beetle-love-mythical-Heroes; “From Satire to Folk Music, the Symbolism Behind ‘La Cucaracha,’” Nuestro Stories, December 1, 2023. https://nuestrostories.com/2022/09/from-satire-to-folk-music-the-symbolism-behind-la-cucaracha; Víctor Monserrat, “Los Artrópodos En La Mitología, Las Creencias, La Ciencia y El Arte Del Antiguo Egipto,” Boletín de La Sociedad Entomológica Aragonesa, no. 52 (2013): 373–437. [iv] The rejas – the iron rod designs on the window of the family home are shaped in the Sankofa. This Adinkra symbol of Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana is the heart shape seen in the wrought iron all over San Antonio, New Orleans, and many other parts of the lands we now call America. This symbol is often understood as a bird and interpreted as “Look to the Past to Understand the Present.” Scholars in Louisiana have found in their research that West African enslaved peoples many times interwove these designs into the wrought iron in New Orleans and other cities. Some claim these designs were a means of communication for the enslaved peoples. Most of these people were not paid for their labor and were considered property, often traded within the same streets where they worked and created their wrought iron messages. For more, see: Kaleena Sales, “Beyond the Bauhaus: West African Adinkra Symbols,” AIGA Design Educators Community, https://educators.aiga.org/beyond-the-bauhaus-west-african-adinkra-symbols/; Marcus Christian, Negro Ironworkers of Louisiana: 1718-1900 (Gretna: Pelican, 2002); Sidney Holmes, “Who Built New Orleans?: The Untold Story of Black Blacksmiths,” Very Local, March 4, 2022; Morgan Randall, “The Storytelling Ironwork of New Orleans,” Atlas Obscura, http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/ironwork-new-orleans-french-quarter-pontalba-adinkra; Christel N. Temple, “The Emergence of Sankofa Practice in the United States: A Modern History,” Journal of Black Studies 41, no. 1 (2010): 127–50, https://www.jstor.org/stable/25704098; Kim Marie Vaz, The “Baby Dolls”: Breaking the Race and Gender Barriers of the New Orleans Mardi Gras Tradition (Baton Rouge: LSU Press, 2013).

Disclaimer: We are human. All of our actions are imperfect. So, chisme is imperfect as is every form of human communication. Yes. Chisme can be harmful and sinful. However, I ask that while reading and engaging this call and response, please spend some time imagining and listening to the possibilities of what attention to chisme can teach us about God-talk. Before moralizing chisme and discounting it as only sinful, join me in examining how chisme can function in the creation of wisdom through its messy, interwoven, and affective existence. I invite us to embrace that which “Enlarge the Space of Your Tent: Working Document for the Continental Stage, Synod 2021 -2024,” page 102 has asked of us: “The free and gratuitous attention to the other, which is the basis of listening, is not a limited resource to be jealously guarded, but an overflowing source that does not run out, but grows the more we draw from it.”   OK. Now, I am going to share some chisme... We, like Jesus, are incarnated and our bodies know! [CALL] Humans only know through our bodies. As embryos grow in the womb and organs begin to develop, those organs begin to function. [RESPONSE] We, like Jesus, are incarnated and our bodies know! [CALL] Newborns recognize voices they hear regularly. [RESPONSE] We, like Jesus, are incarnated and our bodies know! [CALL] The movement and swaying of dancing in womb, in arms, on one’s own can be understood as a form of teaching into our traditions. For some this teaching happens in all of these places and spaces. For others, this form of teaching happens only in womb or in arms or on one’s own. However, in these places and spaces, our bodies attain wisdom. [RESPONSE] We, like Jesus, are incarnated and our bodies know! [CALL] Our bodies learn. [RESPONSE] We, like Jesus, are incarnated and our bodies know! [CALL] Our bodies also know when someone has mistreated us or when we have experienced the mistreatment of others. [RESPONSE] We, like Jesus, are incarnated and our bodies know! [CALL] Many Christians believe in creation as Imago Dei – created in the image and likeness of God. [RESPONSE] We, like Jesus, are incarnated and our bodies know! [CALL] And that image of God is three persons one God which we call the Trinity. [RESPONSE] We, like Jesus, are incarnated and our bodies know! [CALL] We believe that God chooses to experience life as fully human so the second person of the Trinity, the Word becomes Incarnate. We believe that this Incarnate Word was conceived and born by Mary and did not just drop into earth as an adult. Although, as Sor María Anna Águeda de San Ignacio reminds us that God could have chosen salvation history to occur in any way. [RESPONSE] We, like Jesus, are incarnated and our bodies know! [CALL] The Greek word for God is Theós Θεός  [RESPONSE] We, like Jesus, are incarnated and our bodies know! [CALL] Logos is Greek for both Word and reason. [RESPONSE] We, like Jesus, are incarnated and our bodies know! [CALL] We can then build on the wisdom of Diana Hayes and say that theology is God-talk. It is also a nod to the Incarnate Word. It is also a nod to how we as humans grow wise – reason – in relationship with God. [RESPONSE] We, like Jesus, are incarnated and our bodies know! [CALL] So, if theology is God-talk and the way we grow in wisdom and knowledge of God as scriptures say about the infant Jesus, then our ways of communicating are directly linked to our own incarnations, our own fleshly existence, our own human bodies. AND… [RESPONSE] We, like Jesus, are incarnated and our bodies know! [CALL] Sure. Professional theologians study for many years to write and publish theology. But, everyone who engages in thinking about and communicating with the divine engages in God-talk, and in what I am calling theological languages. We engage theological languages through our own incarnations and with every difference and particularity which makes each one of us unique because… [RESPONSE] We, like Jesus, are incarnated and our bodies know! [CALL] We are people of God in places of God – el pueblo de Díos. Theological languages, therefore, exist in and through el pueblo de Díos. [RESPONSE] We, like Jesus, are incarnated and our bodies know! [CALL] One of these theological languages is chisme. Chisme contends with Truth from an experiential perspective. Chisme is incarnational and can be found in Christian scriptures. Chisme is a language of lo cotidiano. Chisme is its own contextualized form of communication related to gossip and the T. Chisme related to gossip has historically religious significance. Chisme related to the T critically contends with structures of power. [RESPONSE] We, like Jesus, are incarnated and our bodies know! [CALL] Phrases like “spilling the T”, “pouring the T”, and “the T is hot” connect our knowledge with many times unspoken truths known by our bodies. [RESPONSE] We, like Jesus, are incarnated and our bodies know!

In 2015, the Department of Education reported that 1 in 5 women in the US is Latina. By 2060, this number is projected to be about 1 in 3 women. As a Latina, I was surprised by these numbers because I did not expect the current Latina population to be near 20% of the entire US female population and over 10% of the entire US population![1] In 2010 and 2015, 50.8% of the population in the US was female.[2] That means that over 10% of the entire US population is Latina and that percentage could be around 18% in 2060 if the projection is correct and the male/female ratio remains the same in the US.[3] But I was also alarmed by these numbers. Why? Because of other statistics about this population: While Latinas earn more bachelor’s degrees than their male counterparts, they still earn less than these men in the labor market. (Latinas earn only 56 cents on the dollar in comparison to Anglo/Euro-American males.)[4] About 33% of Latinas become pregnant by the age of 20.[5] Latinoa teens have consistently higher suicide rates than their black and white counterparts - 18.9% have seriously considered attempting suicide; 15.7% have made a plan about how they would attempt suicide; 11.3% have attempted suicide.[6] What does this have to do with teaching, religion, and politics? Well, if Latinas account for over 10% of the US population, and 60% of the Latinoa population[7] are citizens of the US, then we are saying that at least 6% of US citizens are Latinoa. Yet, I find few syllabi or resources at the university and seminary-level that are engaging issues of concern for Latinas. The dearth is especially obvious in general education courses. This is significant because misperceptions of Latinas leads large numbers of US citizens to think that the majority of Latinas are not citizens and should be, depending on one’s political affiliations, treated accordingly. Many of my students in the Midwest have lived without engaging the Latinoa population and I have found in my teaching at the University of Dayton, and other institutions, that they do not know about the complex and varied realities of Latina life in the US. When I share with them that most Latinas are born citizens or born to citizen parents and then naturalized, students have told me that they thought most Latinas came to this country by crossing the Mexico/US border on rafts. I am concerned that talk of sanctuary spaces in response to statements made by the President-Elect will focus student attention on creating these sanctuary spaces with little regard to either the diversity of Latina life or the social issues which affect them. In other words, sanctuary spaces are not enough for us to fix the social ills of the pueblo. Our systems of education do not help to make these connections either. But, I believe we religion scholars have a special role to play in teaching and learning with and about Latinas.I am listing some resources below to start the discussion about this topic. What other resources do you know/have you used to teach with and about Latinas? Resources Ada María Isasi-Díaz. Mujerista Theology. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1996. Jacqueline Hidalgo. Revelation in Aztlán: Scriptures, Utopias, and the Chicano Movement. London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. Lara Medina. "Nepantla Spirituality: An Emancipative Vision for Inclusion" in Wading Through Many Voices (2011). Latinitas – www.laslatinitas.com – This Texas-based organization empowers young Latinas through media and technology to become strong and confident leaders. Maria Pilar Aquino, Daisy L. Machado, & Jeanette Rodrguez. A Reader in Latina Feminist Theology. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2002. Various authors in Orlando O. Espín. The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Latino/a Theology. Hoboken: NJ, 2015.     [1] [2] [4] http://www.nationalpartnership.org/research-library/workplace-fairness/fair-pay/latinas-wage-gap.pdf [5] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db136.htm [6] [7] http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2015/jul/29/jose-diaz-balart/majority-hispanic-population-us-born-says-jose-dia/; http://factfinder.census.gov/faces/nav/jsf/pages/index.xhtml