Practices of Faith and Racial Integration in South Texas

Abstract

The article presents a case study about the experience of segregation and the process of racial integration within a local Catholic church in South Texas. Following the ideology of segregation that was prevalent during the early part of the 20th century, Anglo Catholics made efforts to both stymie Mexican popular religious practices and to segregate Mexican origin people. The case study demonstrates that, despite desegregation litigation of the 1960s, `customary' practices of Mexican segregation remained active well into the 1970s. The article suggests that because Mexican segregation had become custom, a change in the dominant racial ideology and, subsequently, racial integration could only occur through community building and the cultural empowerment of the Mexican origin community. In this case, cultural empowerment took root in the revival of Mexican popular religious practices.