This book, his first, establishes Daniel Ramírez as a prominent scholar in the field of American cultural history, especially that of Latina/o Pentecostalism. The subtitle of the book is a little misleading: this book is much more focused than it suggests, and is situated in a specific region and in a particular chronological period. Ramírez writes about the largely unexplored history of Pentecostal migrants in the borderlands between Mexico and the United States. Some of the first Pentecostals in the early twentieth century were among these Spanish-speaking converts from nominal Roman Catholicism. The history begins at the Azusa Street revival in Los Angeles that began in 1906, where Mexicans and Mexican Americans were among the curiously interracial congregation (curious because this was the time of Jim Crow laws). These converts carried the Pentecostal message, later in its heterodox, non-Trinitarian ‘Oneness’ form, to the borderlands in both countries. In doing so, in ensuing years, it carved out an institutional and transnational identity. But at the same time its vulnerability was evident: faced with American xenophobia and racism, Pentecostal migrants were caught between the Great Repatriation of the 1930s United States, and the Mexican civil wars of the same era. Some of the personal case histories of hitherto unknown but remarkable leaders richly illuminate these struggles. In the current political climate, where talk is of building walls and shutting people out, this book's account of a subaltern people in a struggle to achieve recognition and identity is a timely reminder that people matter, and after their long struggle to achieve a new and better life should be welcomed by their ‘host’ countries.

This study was several years in the making, which underscores Ramírez's meticulous research, and the result is a tour de force of religious and cultural history. Ramírez carefully sets out his ambitious, interdisciplinary project to trace the history of migrating Mexican Pentecostals (particularly ‘Apostolic’ Oneness Pentecostals) in the borderlands during the first half of the twentieth century. In doing so he draws from a vast variety of sources: official documents (both American and Mexican), periodicals, music recordings and hymnody, interviews, and personal and family histories. He relates his findings to extant literature, breaks new methodological grounds, and thus opens up a new world. This solid, clear research with metaphorical imagery reveals a hitherto unknown social history from the perspective of Mexicans and Chicanos in early Pentecostalism. Such a history from the so-called ‘underside’ or ‘margins’, a subaltern history, is certainly needed. Ramírez's careful research shows that even though the memory and impact of subalterns is extremely difficult to retrieve, that retrieval process is part of what he has done so successfully. His study is influenced by a post-colonial approach that looks at the often unconscious areas of cultural bias in the writings and actions of American Pentecostals.

By focusing on marginalised Mexican Oneness adherents, we are given a vivid impression of the cultural and religious space that these pioneers carved out for themselves in response to their harsh living conditions and the hegemony of what were usually their Anglo antagonists. Through describing the many decades-long repatriation challenges facing Mexican migrants in the United States, Migrating faith also has universal relevance today, all the more so with the fierce and often ethnocentric, racist and short-sighted debates raging in the western world on the subject of immigration. It touches significant issues: xenophobia and injustice; uprooted asylum-seekers seeking a better life; religious migrants in the borderlands between human boundaries that are not just geographical; the importance of gathering oral histories from marginalised peoples, of exploring the cultural and religious dimensions of migrant life, and dating the persecution creating migration in certain parts of the world. This fascinating publication sets a benchmark for similar studies for years to come. I have no hesitation in recommending it warmly.