A Reader in Latina Feminist Theology
A Reader in Latina Feminist Theology
Religion and Justice
Speaking for the growing community of Latina feminist theologians, the editors of this volume write, "With the emergence and growth of the feminist theologies of liberation, we no longer wait for others to define or validate our experience of life and faith.... We want to express in our own words our plural ways of experiencing God and our plural ways of living our faith. And these ways have a liberative tone."
With twelve original essays by emerging and established Latina feminist theologians, this first-of-its-kind volume adds the perspectives, realities, struggles, and spiritualities of U.S. Latinas to the larger feminist theological discourse. The editors have gathered writings from both Roman Catholics and Protestants and from various Latino/a communities. The writers address a wide array of theological concerns: popular religion, denominational presence and attraction, methodology, lived experience, analysis of nationhood, and interpretations of life lived on a border that is not only geographic but also racial, gendered, linguistic, and religious.
To my knowledge, this anthology is the first attempt to give a comprehensive account of the emerging field of Latina feminist theology, and the various contributions illustrate how variegated this field promises to be.
María Pilar Aquino is Associate Professor of Theology and Religious Studies and Associate Director of the Center for the Study of Latino/a Catholicism at the University of San Diego. Daisy L. Machado is Associate Professor of the History of Christianity and Latino Church Studies at Brite Divinity School, Texas Christian University. Jeanette Rodríguez is Chair of the Theology and Religious Studies Department at Seattle University.
- Foreword by Olga Villa Parra
- Introduction
- Part I: Sources, Thought, and Praxis of Latina Feminist Insight
- 1. Michelle A. González: Seeing Beauty within Torment: Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz and the Baroque in New Spain
- 2. Teresa Delgado: Prophesy Freedom: Puerto Rican Women's Literature as a Source for Latina Feminist Theology
- 3. Gail Pérez: Ana Castillo as Santera: Reconstructing Popular Religious Praxis
- 4. Leticia A. Guardiola-Sáenz: Reading from Ourselves: Identity and Hermeneutics among Mexican-American Feminists
- 5. Anna Adams: Perception Matters: Pentecostal Latinas in Allentown, Pennsylvania
- 6. Jeanette Rodríguez: Latina Activists: Toward an Inclusive Spirituality of Being in the World
- Part II: U.S. Latina Feminist Theological Insight
- 7. María Pilar Aquino: Latina Feminist Theology: Central Features
- 8. Daisy L. Machado: The Unnamed Woman: Justice, Feminists, and the Undocumented Woman
- 9. Carmen Marie Nanko: Justice Crosses the Border: The Preferential Option for the Poor in the United States
- 10. Nora O. Lozano-Díaz: Ignored Virgin or Unaware Women: A Mexican-American Protestant Reflection on the Virgin of Guadalupe
- 11. Gloria Inés Loya: Pathways to a Mestiza Feminist Theology
- 12. Nancy Pineda-Madrid: Notes Toward a ChicanaFeminist Epistemology (and Why It Is Important for Latina Feminist Theologies)
- Selected Bibliography
- Contributors
- Index
