Religious expressions of chicanos in Los Angeles

From the body to the streets

Abstract

Within representational spaces, complex symbolism and generally related to the clandestine side of life, we propose a sub-classification: the third space or "Nepantla", which applies to the culture of Mexican immigrants in the US and their descendants popularly called Chicanos. They generate this new space from the feeling of "being in the middle of", as a cultural union between Anglos, Mexicans and indigenous people. "Nepantla" is considered a transitional phase that begins simply with the language. The postmodern paradigm then refers to the creation of a New Medium, a rehabilitation from the colonial occupation for its psychological survival.
One of the strategies of cultural consolidation is precisely the process of transculturation and transfer of values, summarized in a different culture that reflects the ambiguity of miscegenation. Once the tensions of Nepantla are understood and confronted, the native Being / I recovers, and Nepantla becomes a psychological, spiritual and political space, where the Chicanos find meaning to their culture by recovering the ancestral. It is as well as the religious space goes from the corporal artistic manifestations, until the materialization of traditional altarcitos in the houses and extends until the urban scale, in the cult to the dead ones and the catholic rites in the streets, imbued of catholic and pagan imaginary who live harmoniously and are the motive of massive congregations.
We have to analyze, then, the religious expressions of Chicanos as an essential part of their social reality in the city of Los Angeles, exposed in all possible scales, which by their own restrictive colonial origins do not require a container building, but are sustained in pure faith.