The growth of Protestantism, particularly Pentecostalism, is an important shift in Latin American religious history. However, it remains understudied, especially in Mexico where Pentecostalism's expansion is not as visible as in regions in Central America or Brazil. Historian Daniel Ramírez helps fill that gap.
Taking a sociocultural approach, Ramírez examines the migratory and religious experiences of Mexican and Mexican-American Pentecostals in the US-Mexico borderlands. Focusing on non-Trinitarian Pentecostalism, he mainly follows the apostólicos of the transnational Iglesia Apostólica de México from its founding in the early 1900s through the 1960s. He argues that Pentecostal worship and music represented a space for marginalized people to “reclaim power in a fragmented social universe” (190). This book places working-class families squarely at the center of religious transformation. Ramírez maintains that the subjects in his study were not merely “Brown Protestants” controlled by US institutions, but rather “demonstrated considerable agency in their construction of a Pentecostal identity” (201). His work looks closely at the under-researched role of musicality in transnational Pentecostalism, and he urges scholars to integrate the soundscape of Pentecostalism into their research so as to understand the social, religious, economic, and geographic repercussions of conversion. Musical texts provide important insight into subaltern religiosity.
Ramírez's most important contribution may be his analysis of forced Mexican repatriation during the 1930s. This experience, in which one of every three Mexicans working in the United States was deported (the number also includes US-born children), influenced the introduction of Pentecostalism in the deportees' home villages. It also led to empowerment for migrants returning home and developing new leadership roles in their communities as they evangelized locally. The migrants’ forced repatriations shaped the Pentecostal experience; many songs highlight the forced exodus as a period of both suffering and resilience. Ramírez demonstrates how the returning migrants popularized hymnals created while living in the United States., including music featuring their own stories of border life. It was this reimagining and rebuilding of religious communities that strengthened Pentecostalism in Mexico as migrants returned home.
During the Bracero era (1942–1964), apostolic songs took on the work experiences of braceros as they faced hardships and discrimination living in Texas, California, or Indiana. Songs about undocumented status highlight the role of the Gospel in saving migrants from dangerous border crossings (not unlike Catholic votive paintings) and run-ins with the INS. The Mexican Iglesia Apostólica and its US counterpart, the Apostolic Assembly of the United States, worked together in providing spaces for apostólicos to discuss experiences of racism, such as Operation Wetback in 1954. Ramírez also perceptively notes that migrants later used letters from church elders to document how long they had been in the United States to qualify for citizenship in the 1980s.
An ongoing debate over whether Protestantism threatens Mexican customs—especially in native villages—centers on the vibrant Catholic fiesta tradition. The anthropologist Manuel Gamio once posited that Protestantism would have a short stint in Mexico: it was too strict, too serious, and too sterile. Ramírez counters that Pentecostal music actually does a better job of embracing Mexican culture than historic Protestantism. Pentecostalism, Ramírez argues, offers “a new sonic universe that replaced the earlier popular Catholic visual words of saints, candles, gilded altars, and paintings.” (178).
He also provides ample background for the roots of Apostolicism, correctly noting that historians tend to lump many Protestant churches together and that Pentecostalism differs from mainline denominations in important ways. He also describes competition and friction as Pentecostalism took off in Mexico. After Vatican II (1962–1965), the Catholic Church promoted ecumenicalism with mainline Protestants, but did no necessarily include Pentecostals. Like Catholics, Presbyterians lamented the growth of Pentecostal sects in Latin America.
Through the recovery and reexamination of old hymnals, Ramírez offers historians of religion a fresh and engaging template for exploring Pentecostal growth in Latin America.
