Religion and Migration in Latin America

Abstract

Throughout the long history of migration to and within Latin America, religion has shaped migrants' lives and experiences. In turn, migrants have shaped religious practices and traditions throughout the hemisphere. From the fifteenth century to the present, migrants to Latin America brought their religious traditions with them—not only Catholicism but also Judaism, Islam, and the traditional African religions—and formed a rich and complex religious and spiritual landscape across the Americas. Subsequently, as Latin America became a region of emigration during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the religious practices of Latin American migrants impacted the cultures, politics, and societies of their destination countries. This chapter will review this long and varied history, with a particular focus on the impact of Latin American immigrants on the religious politics of the United States in the twentieth century and on the role of religion—and religious conflict—in migration. For example, both Mexicans and Cubans fled religious persecution—Mexicans during the 1910–20 Revolution and Cristero conflict of the late 1920s, and Cubans after the 1959 Revolution—and built transnational connections to religious movements in their homelands, while also seeking the help and protection of the U.S. Catholic Church. The U.S. Church has subsequently been fundamentally altered by the arrival of millions of Catholic migrants from Latin America since the early twentieth century. In addition, Latin American immigrants have had a significant impact on U.S. Evangelical Protestantism during the twentieth story, particularly over the last forty years. By situating these twentieth-century developments within the longer history of religion and migration in Latin America, this chapter underscores the importance of religion throughout the migration processes of Latin America, and indeed, the entire hemisphere.