Faith and Power

Illuminates how religion has shaped Latino politics and community building

Too often religious politics are considered peripheral to social movements, not central to them. Faith and Power: Latino Religious Politics Since 1945 seeks to correct this misinterpretation, focusing on the post–World War II era. It shows that the religious politics of this period were central to secular community-building and resistance efforts.

The volume traces the interplay between Latino religions and a variety of pivotal movements, from the farm worker movement to the sanctuary movement, offering breadth and nuance to this history. This illuminates how broader currents involving immigration, refugee policies, de-industrialization, the rise of the religious left and right, and the Chicana/o, immigrant, and Puerto Rican civil rights movements helped to give rise to political engagement among Latino religious actors. By addressing both the influence of these larger trends on religious movements and how the religious movements in turn helped to shape larger political currents, the volume offers a compelling look at the twentieth-century struggle for justice.

Felipe Hinojosa is Baylor University’s Jackson Family Chair in Latin America. He is the author of two books, including the award-winning Latino Mennonites: Civil Rights, Faith, and Evangelical Culture (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014), and coeditor of our Faith and Power: Latino Religious Politics Since 1945 (2022).Elmore Maggie :

Maggie Elmore is Assistant Professor of History at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas.González Sergio M. :

Sergio M. González is Assistant Professor of History in the Departments of History and Languages, Literatures, and Cultures at Marquette University. He is the author of Mexicans in Wisconsin and the co-editor of Faith and Power: Latino Religious Politics Since 1945 with Felipe Hinojosa and Maggie Elmore.Felipe Hinojosa (Editor)
Felipe Hinojosa is Baylor University’s Jackson Family Chair in Latin America. He is the author of two books, including the award-winning Latino Mennonites: Civil Rights, Faith, and Evangelical Culture (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014), and coeditor of our Faith and Power: Latino Religious Politics Since 1945 (2022).

Maggie Elmore (Editor)
Maggie Elmore is Assistant Professor of History at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas.

Sergio M. González (Editor)
Sergio M. González is Assistant Professor of History in the Departments of History and Languages, Literatures, and Cultures at Marquette University. He is the author of Mexicans in Wisconsin and the co-editor of Faith and Power: Latino Religious Politics Since 1945 with Felipe Hinojosa and Maggie Elmore.

The strength of this volume lies in the breadth and diversity of expressions of Latino religious politics covered, ranging from rural agricultural contexts to urban centres of power, including histories from within Roman Catholicism, Pentecostalism, and even Mormonism... This is an insightful volume for scholars and students wanting to know more about and further reflect on an oft forgotten history.

One of the book’s most appealing aspects for me was its use of narratives throughout, which provide, in anthropologist Clifford Geertz’s term, a “thick description” of the role of agency among populations, especially those who have endured decades of prejudice or oppression within their faith communities or outside of
them. While the book’s range of scholarship—as the footnotes and index reveal—is certainly commendable, overall it makes for an interesting, colorful read.

Geraldo Cadava, author of The Hispanic Republican: The Shaping of an American Political Identity, from Nixon to Trump:
Historians of Latinx politics have typically downplayed the importance of religion, and studies of Latinx religion have tended to focus on spirituality, belief, and cultural expression, while ignoring politics. Featuring an extraordinary lineup of scholars—including some of the top influential Latinx historians—Faith and Power is an impressive resource for understanding Latinx religious politics.

Timothy Matovina, University of Notre Dame:
Features an array of fascinating topics, with appropriate diversity of historical period, religious affiliation, region, and subject. The editors have gathered an impressive group of scholars whose contributions form a compelling analysis of political action among Latinx religious communities.