Conversion, Deconversion, and Reversion: Vagaries of Religious Experience in Oscar Zeta Acosta’s Autofictions

Abstract

I finally gave up on Catholicism and admitted to Duane Dunham that he knew more about Jesus than I did. We went into boiler room under barracks and he called down Holy Ghost to save me. I took Jesus as my savior and became a Baptist right on spot. --Oscar Zeta Acosta, The Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo (131) I took to rising at 3:00 A.M. to pray and read my Bible.... But I was miserable. I hurt inside. I didn't have peace of mind that Jesus promised if we did his work. --Oscar Zeta Acosta, The Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo (133) It is Christmas Eve in year of Huitzilopochtli, 1969. Three hundred Chicanos have gathered in front of St. Basil's Roman Catholic Church. Three hundred brown-eyed children of sun have come to drive money-changers out of richest temple in Los Angeles. --Oscar Zeta Acosta, The Revolt of Cockroach People (11) Scholars of Chicano literature have not yet explored nuanced religious content of Oscar Zeta Acosta's two autofictions, The Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo (1972) and The Revolt of Cockroach People (1973). (1) Perhaps this is because scenes of Acosta's conversion to Baptist Church in 1954, his deconversion two years later, and his turn back to Catholicism are underplayed in these narratives, and throughout both texts Acosta's autobiographical personae continually make light of deity, religion, and religious practices. And yet, certain passages, sometimes tenebrous or ironic, and supported by extratextual material, betray how deeply religion affected his life. I offer corrective readings for these texts that are attentive to significance of religion for Acosta and thus round out portrait of this important Chicano figure. Recent articles and books look at Acosta's autobiography in context of fat studies (Chamberlain), testimonial satire (Hames-Garcia, Dr. Gonzo and Fugitive), a bildungsroman of Chicano counterculture (Lee, Chicanismo), and magicorealism (Aldama, Postethnie and Oscar). Other than scholars noting that Acosta established a rhetorical identification with Jesus, instantiated in his inaccurate reiteration of his age at time of narration as thirty-three, the same age as Jesus when he died (Autobiography 18), and H6ctor Calderon's view that Autobiography follows trajectory of a Christian narrative of guilt, confession and redemption (98-99), only one article specifically deals with role of religion in Acosta's texts. Joe D. Rodriguez's 1981 assessment of religion in three Chicano novels acknowledges religious dilemmas faced by Chicano writers as they confront a multiplicity of blended religio-cultural traditions (Catholicism, curandismo or folk healing, and indigenous Mexican religions) and must reconcile their religious identification with Chicano group identity. Rodriguez fails, however, to grasp complex role of religion in Acosta's texts; his final analysis implies that Acosta sublimates his religious yearnings into drug use, which in turn helps him adapt to opposing religious outlooks. Rodriguez's article thus does little to further an understanding of complex social forces behind Acosta's conversion and deconversion to Baptist Church and role of Catholicism in his life. A more comprehensive approach to matter of religion in Acosta's texts is long overdue. My own research suggests that Acosta's religious experiences instantiate his failed assimilation into mainstream white America and his return to an ethnically symbolic Mexican American Catholicism. However, I register a number of caveats in making these claims. It is difficult to hypothesize widespread sociological significance or to make broad generalizations about Mexican American experience from Acosta's highly experimental autofictions. Furthermore, it is somewhat perilous to claim that Acosta's fictionalized narratives necessarily reflect his own religious experiences or identities. …