EACH WEEK IN my immigration-literature graduate seminar, we examine one book that focuses on the immigrant experience. So far, we have read about Norwegian, Italian, and Japanese experiences. Our upcoming texts center the experiences of Polish Jews, Koreans, Nigerians, Senegalese, Mexicans, and Muslims, among many others. Faith plays a central role in each book we’ve read so far, both fiction and nonfiction. In each text, the matriarch of the family brings the faith of her mother country into the United States. The matriarchs are themselves the texts for the survival of the faith in these families.
In my family, my grandmother was the compass for our faith traditions. We grew up Catholic and later became nondenominational. We explored many expressions of faith before we found one that fit. As a family, we retained many of our Catholic traditions, because they are woven into who we are. It’s a complicated relationship, and one that we greatly value.
My maternal great-great-grandparents are from northern Mexico, a generation of family that did not cross the border—the Texas/Mexico border crossed us when lines were redrawn. My great- grandparents, grandparents, and parents did not immigrate to Texas, they were born here. From their Mexican Catholic heritage, they brought rosaries, holy water, and the experiences of weaving Ojos de Dios to protect our homes. They also brought with them knowledge of how to use copal and agua de florida to bless our living spaces and repeated instructions on where exactly to place a glass of water underneath our beds to keep the nightmares at bay.
Our current political climate is mired in violent rhetoric toward immigrant families and those who live in the liminal spaces of cultures. This rhetoric ignited a man to drive more than five hours to open fire on a Latinx community, his violence rooted in the assumption that people who had perhaps been here for generations were “invaders” to this country. In the face of evil, people in El Paso—as have others around the globe—rose strong in love, community, and faith.
In my home, I am the faith gauge. Whatever temperature my faith happens to be on a given day, my family feeds off that energy. I’ve learned that centering God before myself provides essential grounding when yet another tragedy unfolds. These days, this seems a daily occurrence.
Literature, including biblical stories, is a big part of my life. I learn so much from reading the experiences of those unlike myself. As I recently read a news report about a man in my own city who continues to threaten a “bloodbath” in my predominantly Latinx community, I remembered Tamar’s resilient efforts to earn her place in Judah’s family, to give hope and possibility to her and her future children. It is the same faith I see in the matriarch who immigrates, whether by choice or design, so that her family and their stories will survive.
Carolina Hinojosa-Cisneros is a Tejana, Chicana, and Mujerista from San Antonio, where she is a graduate student at Our Lady of the Lake University. She is the 2019 recipient of the Rubem Alves Award in Theopoetics.
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