In a much-needed contribution, Edwin David Aponte illustrates the ever-changing plurality and diversity of Latino/a spirituality through sundry expressions while confronting “easy-to-use” categories (35). ¡Santo! delivers an amuse-bouche featuring a variety of representations of Latina/o life, religions, and spirituality. The book moves beyond a stereotypical Latino/a Christian-centric perspective to include introductions about Latino/a Jews and Muslims. The structure of this monograph itself demonstrates the building of philosophical, theological, and lived aspects of spirituality from reflections on wide-ranging and far-reaching facets of lo cotidiano, daily life.
The entire book demonstrates the complexity of limiting Latino/a spirituality to one definitive way of life. To broaden such an approach, Aponte names seven guides for working toward a definition of santo, including African American scholar Flora Wilson Bridges. He does not, however, include the perspective of senior scholar and Latino spiritualogian Gilberto Cavazos-González, or any other guide from within Latina/o studies of spirituality.
The introduction, chapter 1, and chapter 2 range from challenging the political misnomer of clean boundaries between church and state to the aforementioned introductions of various Latino/a religions found within the United States. In what may be considered one way of sharing information and creating knowledge Latinamente, chapter 3 moves from these broad strokes of many aspects of life to the specific uplifting of attributes of the holy as found in Latino/a experiences while describing the very complicated task of naming for Latinos/as. Again through both word and medium Aponte opposes an understanding of Latinamente from a unilateral existence to panethnic, panracial, and constantly shifting realities. Chapters 4 through 6 serve a tapas of rituals, rhetoric, places, and spaces in which santo and illuminations of the sacred in daily traditions that have their roots in Latin America and Spain are both continued and transformed within the context of the United States by Latinas/os.
Chapter 7 explores “Spanglish spirituality” (133). In this chapter, Aponte makes the excellent point that “when an ecclesial decision is made that ‘something’ needs to be done, many ministry approaches to the Latino/a population are totally ignorant of both the many differences and the great diversity of the peoples of Latin American descent but also the complex cultural blending that is constantly occurring” (143). ¡Santo! identifies “Spanglish/Espanglish” as the locations where these ever-changing, polyphonic, regenerating Latino/a spiritualities find their spheres. Spanglish/Espanglish has become a linguistic regularity for Latino/a theologians and scholars of religion. Yet, if Aponte's incitement to move beyond the stereotypical and easily categorized is to be taken seriously, then the immanent necessity has been reached to move beyond Spanglish/Espanglish to embrace Latino/a realities that include Mixtec, Nahuatl, Portuguese, Arabic, and the many other languages spoken in the Americas.
¡Santo! offers a good first step in engaging a large variety of Latino/a daily expressions, material culture, and popular devotion through what Aponte calls “continuity . . . without fossilization” (11). The medium of a book presents the challenge of illustrating ever-changing realities in a stagnant format. An excellent sequel to ¡Santo! would be an interactive media project where the medium allows for the expressions of these ever-changing realities.
