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Undocumented Saints: The Politics of Migrating Devotions
Undocumented Saints follows the migration of popular saints from Mexico into the US and the evolution of their meaning. The book explores how Latinx battles for survival are performed in the worlds of faith, religiosity, and the imaginary, and how the socio-political realities of exploitation and racial segregation frame their popular religious expressions. It also tracks the emergence of inter-religious states, transnational ethnic and cultural enclaves unified by faith.
The book looks at five vernacular saints that have emerged in Mexico and whose devotions have migrated into the US in the last one hundred Jesús Malverde, a popular bandido turned saint caudillo; Santa Olguita, an emerging feminist saint linked to border women's experiences of sexual violence; Juan Soldado, a murder-rapist soldier who is now a patron for undocumented immigrants and the main suspect in the death of an eight-year-old victim known now as Santa Olguita; Toribio Romo, a Catholic priest whose ghost/spirit has been helping people cross the border into the US since the 1990s; and La Santa Muerte, a controversial personification of death who is particularly popular among LGBTQ migrants. Each chapter contextualizes a particular popular saint within broader discourses about the construction of masculinity and the state, the long history of violence against Latina and migrant women, female erasure from history, discrimination against non-normative sexualities, and as US and
Mexican investment in the control of religiosity within the discourses of immigration.
The book looks at five vernacular saints that have emerged in Mexico and whose devotions have migrated into the US in the last one hundred Jesús Malverde, a popular bandido turned saint caudillo; Santa Olguita, an emerging feminist saint linked to border women's experiences of sexual violence; Juan Soldado, a murder-rapist soldier who is now a patron for undocumented immigrants and the main suspect in the death of an eight-year-old victim known now as Santa Olguita; Toribio Romo, a Catholic priest whose ghost/spirit has been helping people cross the border into the US since the 1990s; and La Santa Muerte, a controversial personification of death who is particularly popular among LGBTQ migrants. Each chapter contextualizes a particular popular saint within broader discourses about the construction of masculinity and the state, the long history of violence against Latina and migrant women, female erasure from history, discrimination against non-normative sexualities, and as US and
Mexican investment in the control of religiosity within the discourses of immigration.
368 pages, Hardcover
First published April 12, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
December 28, 2025
An interesting and informative book about saints you have (likely) never heard of. The author documents the curious and circuitous paths of how these folks got to be saints and the complex relation of these saints and their stories with culture and justice issues.
February 25, 2024
Brilliant
January 21, 2025
This book is interesting, but was not exactly what I had expected from the excerpt.
April 3, 2025
read for a class. not my personal cup of tea, but well researched and argued
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews