Recognizing The Latino Resurgence In U.s. Religion: The Emmaus Paradigm (Explorations - Contemporary Perspectives on Religion) [Hardcover]

Ana Maria Diaz-stevens (Author), Anthony M Stevens-arroyo (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 27, 1997 | Series: Explorations - Contemporary Perspectives on Religion

Emmaus is the biblical episode that recounts how the disciples, who had been unable to recognize the resurrected Jesus even as he traveled with them, finally come to know him as their Lord through his inspirational conversation. In this major new work exploring Latino religion, Ana María Díaz-Stevens and Anthony M. Stevens-Arroyo compare a century-old presence of Latinos and Latinas under the U.S. flag to the Emmaus account. They convincingly argue for a new paradigm that breaks with the conventional view of Latinos and Latinas as just another immigrant group waiting to be assimilated into the U.S. The authors suggest instead the concept of a colonized people who now are prepared to contribute their cultural and linguistic heritage to a multicultural and multilingual America.The first chapter provides an overview of the religious and demographic dynamics that have contributed a specifically Latino character to the practice of religion among the 25 million plus members of what will become the largest minority group in the U.S. in the twenty-first century. The next two chapters offer challenging new interpretations of tradition and colonialism, blending theory with multiple examples from historical and anthropological studies on Latinos and Latinas. The heart of the book is dedicated to exploring what the authors call the Latino Religious Resurgence, which took place between 1967 and 1982. Comparing this period to the Great Awakenings of Colonial America and the Risorgimento of nineteenth-century Italy, the authors describe a unique combination of social and political forces that stirred Latinos and Latinas nationally. Utilizing social science theories of social movement, symbolic capital, generational change, a new mentalité, and structuration, the authors explain why Latinos and Latinas, who had been in the U.S. all along, have only recently come to be recognized as major contributors to American religion. The final chapter paints an optimistic role for religion, casting it as a binding force in urban life and an important conduit for injecting moral values into the public realm.Offering an extensive bibliography of major works on Latino religion and contemporary social science theory, Recognizing the Latino Resurgence in U.S. Religion makes an important new contribution to the fields of sociology, religious studies, American history, and ethnic and Latino studies.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Ana María Díaz-Stevens is associate professor of church and society at Union Theological Seminary. Anthony M. Stevens-Arroyo is professor of Puerto Rican studies at Brooklyn College and president of the Program for the Analysis of Religion Among Latinas/os. Ana María Díaz-Stevens is associate professor of church and society at Union Theological Seminary. Anthony M. Stevens-Arroyo is professor of Puerto Rican studies at Brooklyn College and president of the Program for the Analysis of Religion Among Latinas/os.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 296 pages
• Publisher: Westview Press (November 27, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0813325099
• ISBN-13: 978-0813325095
• Product Dimensions: 9.8 x 6.8 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,116,542 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Religion As Social Capital, November 30, 1999

By 

William D. Dinges (Washington, D.C.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Recognizing The Latino Resurgence In U.s. Religion: The Emmaus Paradigm (Explorations: Contemporary Perspectives on Religion) (Paperback)

This book is a "must read" for all serious students of the contemporary Latino/a religious, cultural, and political experience in the United States. The authors bring assorted research skills and first-hand knowledge of many of the individuals and movements they describe in filling in a complex picture of social change in churches and society. In so doing, they provide an important overview of Latino religious experience (both Protestant and Catholic). This is a story that has been told in a largely piecemeal fashion up to this point. Profs. Stevens-Arroyo and Diaz-Stevens also rightly call social scientists to task for a general neglect of the varieties and vicissitudes of Latino religion. Their book provides much needed clarification of the term "Latino," along with an array of contemporary social and census data on Latinos in the United States. This study also provides valuable insights into the dynamics of organizational change and the role of individual leadership in turning (or, in some cases, failing to turn) religious instititions to the advantage of a group in the form of social, cultural and political movements. Most significantly, Recognizing the Latino Resurgence in U.S. Religion illuminates the dangers of entangling the Latino experience--religious and otherwise--with that of Euro-Americans and Afro-Americans, or of naively assuming that Latinos are following the assimilationist model of the Euro-American experience. The American penchant for thinking along racial rather than colonialist lines is also subjected to a much need critique vis-a-vis the Latino experience. The text is dense at points, but always engaging and filled with provocative insights into the ever-changing dynamics of religion and culture in American society. This book is highly relevant to a variety of topics as diverse as ethnic and intergroup relations, the theology of popular religiosity, Latino religion(s), social change, organizational dynamics, studies of identity formation, multicultural pluralism and the complex role of faith experience in American political and social life.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A new face of American religion, February 18, 2000

By 

Rhys H. Williams (Carbondale, IL) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Recognizing The Latino Resurgence In U.s. Religion: The Emmaus Paradigm (Explorations: Contemporary Perspectives on Religion) (Paperback)

Professors Diaz-Stevens and Stevens-Arroyo have done both the academic and the religious community a great service by both describing and analyzing Latino/a religion in the United States. They bring current concepts from sociology, culture theory, and theology to what is a too-often overlooked topic -- the ways in which growing Latino/a populations are changing the United States, as well as being changed by them. The book has a developed historical focus, and also makes suggestions about the future of scholarship on American religion. Obviously this is a necessary book for those interested in Hispanic Americans and for those interested in American religion. But it is also helpful to those who want to get a firmer grasp on the directions in which the United States is heading at the beginning of the new century.