Global Pentecostalism and Ethnic Identity

PNEUMA 39 (2017) 5–33 brill.com/pneu

Global Pentecostalism and Ethnic Identity Maintenance among Latino Immigrants A Case Study of a Guatemalan Neo-Pentecostal Congregation in the Pacific Northwest* Deborah L. Berhó Council for Christian Colleges and Universities, Washington, dc [email protected]

Gerardo Martí Davidson College, Davidson, North Carolina [email protected]

Mark T. Mulder Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Michigan [email protected]

Abstract Protestantism has been considered particularly weak for sustaining ethnic boundaries among immigrants. Recognizing the global adaptability and indigenization of Pentecostalism, however, we expect that immigrants from more pentecostal nations will likely retain their Protestantism in ways that affirm their ethnic identity. Using ethnographic data, our research demonstrates how a Guatemalan pentecostal church in Oregon successfully preserves its homeland culture, revealing how the structure of Pentecostalism at La Iglesia de Restauración (affiliated with Elim churches) sustains ethnic continuity with its native indigenous culture. This Latino Protestant church affirms Pentecostalism’s capacity to encourage transnational relationships through a variety of social mechanisms, including provision of ethnic symbols and a space to use them, use of homeland languages (both Ki’ché and Spanish), and promotion of a homegrown leadership. Moreover, the doctrinal division between “world” and “church” discourages

* Funding for data collection is provided from the Latino Protestant Congregations Project through a grant from Lilly Endowment.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2017 | doi: 10.1163/15700747-03901004

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assimilation into American culture while simultaneously reinforcing maintenance of “godly” indigenous practices that are legitimated as appropriately religious.

Keywords Pentecostalism – immigration – ethnic identity – congregations – transnationalism – ethnography – case study

The effect of religion on the persistence of ethnic identity receives significant scholarly attention. Some scholars find certain immigrant religious practices to be particularly effective for sustaining ethnic identity after migration, especially the capacity of a religious orientation to call forth “strong retrospective elements, namely, devotions and practices that look to and call forth memories of the home country.”1 However, based on a supposed lack of such “retrospective elements,” observers have considered Protestantism to be particularly weak in providing the rituals and symbols necessary to sustain strong ethnic boundaries for immigrants.2 Given the diversity of Protestantism across the globe and, consequently, among various immigrant groups in the United States, the relative strength of Protestantism for preserving an ethnic identity needs further nuancing, specifically among the growing u.s. Protestant Latino population.3 Neither Protestants nor Latinos are monolithic, and both terms accepted uncritically ignore significant divisions and heterogeneity.4 For example, global Pentecostalism is now widely acknowledged as the largest segment of Protestantism,5 and

1 Jonathan E. Calvillo and Stanley R. Bailey, “Latino Religious Affiliation and Ethnic Identity,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 54 (2015): 57–78. See also Pyong Gap Min, Preserving Ethnicity Through Religion in America: Korean Protestants and Indian Hindus Across Generations (New York: New York University Press, 2010); Patricia Baquedano-López, “Creating Social Identities through Doctrina Narratives,” Issues in Applied Linguistics 8 (1997): 27–45. 2 Calvillo and Bailey, “Latino Religious Affiliation”; Min, Preserving Ethnicity. 3 For more on Latino Protestants in the United States, see Mark T. Mulder, Aida I. Ramos, and Gerardo Martí, Latino Protestants in America: Growing and Diverse (Lanham, md: Rowman and Littlefield, 2017). 4 Gerardo Martí, “Latino Protestants and Their Congregations: Establishing an Agenda for Sociological Research,” Sociology of Religion 76 (2016): 145–54. 5 Charismatic movements within Catholicism are also growing worldwide; however, they are not considered within the scope of this paper.

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some of its phenomenally rapid growth has been attributed to its willingness to adopt and adapt to local cultural customs.6 When Pentecostalism deeply integrates local practices, these can become “retrospective elements” embedded within the religious practices of immigrants. Pentecostalism therefore may hold greater promise relative to other types of Protestantism for maintaining ethnic identity among immigrants because the continued practice of their pentecostal religion in a new country is enmeshed with the continual reengagement with their home culture. Among the nineteen countries of origin among Latino immigrants to the United States, some are indeed highly pentecostal; we expect immigrants from those nations to retain their Protestantism in ways that consistently affirm their ethnic identity. The cultural pull of their home culture derives from more than the comfort of familiar ways or nostalgia for a shared past. Rather, we argue that the adaptability and indigenization characteristic of Pentecostalism among these Latino immigrants means that elements of their home culture come to be defined as “godly” or appropriately spiritual in contrast to the seemingly secular and “worldly” character of their new culture. The continual reenactment of their ethnic identity derives from a distinctly moral and religious constraint since they view their spiritual form of life as good, right, and true.7 Our research, therefore, challenges the supposed weakness of Protestant religious orientations for sustaining transnational cultural affiliations. By conceptually diversifying Protestantism and more specifically exploring the capacity of Pentecostalism to maintain and affirm the ethnic identity of Latino immigrants, we find Pentecostalism to be especially capable of maintaining Latino ethnic identity. In this article, using a case study of a Guatemalan pentecostal congregation in Oregon, our research demonstrates how a Guatemalan manifestation of global Pentecostalism in the United States provides religious practices that successfully preserve their homeland culture. In examining the history of Guatemalan religion, we see how Pentecostalism in Guatemala provides salient—and transferable—cultural practices that are available for emi-

6 Allan Anderson, Michael Bergunder, André Droogers, and Cornelis van der Laan, eds., Studying Global Pentecostalism: Theories and Methods (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010); Gerardo Martí, “The Adaptability of Pentecostalism: The Fit between Prosperity Theology and Globalized Individualization in a Los Angeles Church,” Pneuma: The Journal of the Society for Pentecostal Studies 34 (2012): 5–25; and Joel Robbins, “The Globalization of Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity,” Annual Review of Anthropology 33 (2004): 117–43. 7 For a methodological discussion on the ethnographic discernment of “found theology,” see Gerardo Martí, “Found Theologies versus Imposed Theologies: Remarks on Theology and Ethnography from a Sociological Perspective,” Ecclesial Practices 3 (2016): 157–72.

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grants to use for maintaining their ethnic identities in new host countries. Ultimately, the force of Pentecostalism for sustaining ethnic identity as found in our ethnographic study of a Guatemalan church is due to its noted adaptability to global contexts. Pentecostalism indigenizes its religious practices such that religious practices and cultural identity reinforce each other among migrants who continue in homeland-resonant congregations long after they are successfully established in a new culture.

Religion and Ethnic Identity among Guatemalan Pentecostals A great deal of sociological research focuses on the role of religion in ethnic identity formation among immigrants, and we recognize that ethnic identity is fluid, multidirectional, and subject to many pressures.8 Yet, in this article, we prioritize an approach to ethnic identity that orients around Schermerhorn’s classic definition: an ethnic group is a group sharing social boundaries at least partly defined by the group’s concept of “real or putative common ancestry, memories of a shared historical past, and a cultural focus on one or more symbolic elements defined as the epitome of their peoplehood.”9 These symbolic elements—which Schermerhorn describes as including religious affiliation, nationality, languages or dialects, and kinship patterns (among other things)10—all serve as means for maintaining ethnic identity among immigrants. Fundamental to Schemerhorn’s conceptualization is that ethnic groups use a variety of ways to recall a shared past to a particular place and thereby continually evoke a common sense of group membership. While the persistence of social-structural change constantly challenges the maintenance and continuity of any ethnic group, religion is often considered a key mechanism for reinforcing the persistence of immigrant group members’ ethnic identity. Variables that scholars have considered in relation to how religion works among ethnic groups include the generational succession in immigration flows, inter-ethnic vs. intra-ethnic processes, and transnational practices. Early studies claimed that immigrant churches aided in assimilation of migrants to host cultures and consequently facilitated their upward mobil-

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Gerardo Martí, “Fluid Ethnicity and Ethnic Transcendence in Multiracial Churches,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 47 (2008): 11–16. R.A. Schermerhorn, Comparative Ethnic Relations: A Framework for Theory and Research (New York: Random House, 1970), 12. Ibid.

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ity.11 Others asserted just the opposite: ethnic churches nurtured the preservation of particularistic language and culture.12 Studies of more recent nonwhite groups tend to agree that ethnic religious congregations buttressed their members’ homeland ethnic identification. As Ebaugh and Chafetz state, “Immigrant religious institutions provide the physical and social spaces in which those who share the same traditions, customs, and languages can reproduce many aspects of their native cultures for themselves and attempt to pass them on to their children.”13 For example, immigrant churches maintain ethnic identity by incorporating native languages and observing recognized rituals that originated in their immigrant homelands.14 Such practices closely align with Schermerhorn’s “symbols” in that they consistently call to mind the home country, promoting a vision of their common ancestry and cultivating memories of a shared past. Sociologist Pyong Gap Min compared Hindu immigrants from India and Protestant immigrants from Korea, finding that Hindu practices were more entwined with Indian identity than was the Protestantism of Koreans. He concluded that highly enculturated religions enable ethnic identity maintenance much more so than lesser enculturated religions.15 In short, the depth of religious enculturation matters greatly for achieving a sustainable ethnic identity among immigrant groups. Discussing the relative strengths of religions for maintaining immigrant ethnic identity, Calvillo and Bailey distinguish between backward-looking versus forward-looking inclinations among religious orientations. They contrast two terms: “retrospective (bridging to and positively valuing homeland and ethnic culture) and … prospective (through a break with the past, rejecting many eth11 12

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Timothy Smith, “Religion and Ethnicity in America,” American Historical Review 83 (December 1978): 1155–85. Andrew Greeley, The Denominational Society: A Sociological Approach to Religion in America (Glenview, il: Scott, Foresman and Co., 1972); Harry Stout, “Ethnicity: The Vital Center of Religion in America,” in American Immigration and Ethnicity: A 20 Volume Series of Distinguished Essays, ed. George Pozzetta, vol. 19 (Hamden, ct: Garland Publishing, 1991), 374–94. Helen Rose Ebaugh and Janet Saltzman Chafetz, Religion and the New Immigrants: Continuities and Adaptations in Immigrant Congregations, abr. stud. ed. (Walnut Creek, ca: AltaMira Press, 2000), 80; see also Min, Preserving Ethnicity. Robert A. Orsi and Richard Alba, “Passages in Piety: Generational Transitions and the Social and Religious Incorporation of Italian Americans,” in Immigration and Religion in America: Comparative and Historical Perspectives, ed. Richard Alba, Albert J. Raboteau, and Josh DeWind (New York: New York University Press, 2009), 32–55. Min, Preserving Ethnicity.

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nic markers, and a focus on self- transformation).”16 This distinction is important to them for explaining the differential capacity of Roman Catholic versus Protestant religious orientations to promote the persistence of ethnic identity. For example, researchers have referred to practices of Roman Catholic Latino immigrants, particularly as related to the Virgin de Guadalupe and to the Spanish language, as effective for retaining their Latino ethnic identity.17 Religious and ethnic identity strongly overlap among Latino Catholics because many of the objects and practices associated with Catholic worship and devotion— the rituals, processions, and material objects providing rich and immersive symbols—have come to be nearly synonymous with Latino ethnic identity.18 The practice of their religion corresponds with a retrospective bridging to their native culture. In contrast, Protestants in Latin America divorce themselves from Catholicism by condemning Catholic religious symbols, whether officially sanctioned by the Vatican or just popular among local adherents, and demand that all faithful “Christians” abandon Catholic observances as idolatrous or corrupt.19 By rejecting long-standing and culturally bound rituals and symbols, Latino Protestants often end up rejecting core aspects of their own cultures.20 Such dismissal results in Latino Protestants essentially stripping away crucial resources for maintaining their ethnic identity. Protestantism is therefore comparatively weaker than Roman Catholicism in maintaining immigrants’ ethnic identity because of its “prospective” or forward-looking inclination. This is evident even in the core creeds associated with Protestantism, including the emphasis on salvation as repentance, a turning point away from one’s sinful past. Latinos switching from Catholicism to Pentecostalism come to see their previous involvement with Catholicism as part of an errant and misguided past to be left behind. The weakness of Protestantism for maintaining ethnic identity can also result from a religious stance that deliberately discounts ethnic particularity.

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Calvillo and Bailey, “Latino Religious,” 64. Italics added. Baquedano-López, “Doctrina Narratives”; Calvillo and Bailey, “Latino Religious.” Cecilia Menjívar, “Religion and Immigration in Comparative Perspective: Catholic and Evangelical Salvadorans in San Francisco, Washington, d.c., and Phoenix,” Sociology of Religion 64 (2003): 21–45; Arlene M. Sanchez-Walsh, Latino Pentecostal Identity: Evangelical Faith, Self, and Society (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003). Calvillo and Bailey, “Latino Religious”; Manuel A. Vasquez, “Pentecostalism, Collective Identity, and Transnationalism among Salvadorans and Peruvians in the u.s.,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 67 (1999): 617–36. See chapter 4 in Mulder, Ramos, and Martí, Latino Protestants in America for more on ethnic identity in Latino Protestant congregations.

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For example, Martí’s studies of multiethnic Protestant churches point to a weakening of ethnic specificity in diverse congregations by promoting, intentionally, a broader and more inclusive religious identity.21 Garces-Foley also finds that Protestantism views the accentuation of indigenous cultures within a church as a barrier to accomplishing a diverse Christian community.22 Together, Martí and Garces-Foley find that Protestant multiethnic churches that promote diversity within a single congregation actively endorse a sacred belief system in which an inclusive religious identity is more important than separate ethnic identities. Protestant church leaders who push for racial and ethnic inclusion idealize Christianity as being beyond cultural particularities and thereby discount any culturally specific, backward-looking, and retrospective elements of Protestantism.23 They instead promote a forward-looking “ethnic transcendence.”24 In contrast to arguments supporting the comparative weakness of Protestantism for maintaining ethnic identity, a few empirical studies now describe Latino Protestant congregations as reinforcing ethnic identity, rather than promoting its loss. For example, Berhó described four Latino congregations (two pentecostal) in Oregon that chose to preserve their cultural identity by intentionally instituting Spanish as the only language used in all their services and classes.25 Two other pentecostal pastors in the same study indicated a strong preference among youth for worship with their coethnics instead of assimilating into “American” or mixed cultural church settings. Ek describes how one young immigrant intentionally practiced her Guatemalan Pentecostalism in Southern California as a way to maintain her distinctive ethnic identity rather 21

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Gerardo Martí, A Mosaic of Believers: Diversity and Innovation in a Multiethnic Church (Bloomington, in: Indiana University Press, 2005); Gerardo Martí, “Affinity, Identity, and Transcendence: The Experience of Religious Racial Integration in Diverse Congregations,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 48 (2009): 53–68; Gerardo Martí, “The Religious Racial Integration of African Americans into Diverse Churches,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 49 (2010): 201–17. Kathleen Garces-Foley, “Comparing Catholic and Evangelical Integration Efforts,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 47 (2008): 17–22, 22. Martí, A Mosaic of Believers; Gerardo Martí and Michael O. Emerson, “The Rise of the Diversity Expert: How American Evangelicals Simultaneously Accentuate and Ignore Race,” in The New Evangelical Social Engagement, ed. Brian Steensland and Philip Goff (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 179–99. Martí, A Mosaic of Believers; Martí, “Affinity, Identity, and Transcendence”; and Martí, “The Religious Racial Integration of African Americans into Diverse Churches.” See Deborah Berhó, Protestant Hispanic Churches of Oregon (Eugene, or: Wipf & Stock, 2012).

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than merging into the dominant Mexican-American milieu around her.26 León provides a fascinating account of the unique Protestant niche of Chicano Pentecostalism at Alcance Victoria in East la.27 Vasquez also demonstrates how practices in two separate pentecostal churches in the u.s. preserve their congregants’ Peruvian and Salvadoran identities.28 And Adams explains how a group of Puerto Rican Pentecostals, after immigrating to Pennsylvania, found personal comfort and ethnic affirmation through their Latino Protestant practices.29 While admittedly few, these studies indicate that Protestantism is capable of supporting and maintaining ethnic identity among Latinos—and that Pentecostalism may be distinctively capable of doing so. In short, Pentecostalism is the form of Protestantism most frequently described as providing tools for Latinos in the United States to strengthen their ethnic identities.30 The analytical task we set out in this paper is to specify the elements of Protestantism within a particular pentecostal church that allow for their religious practices to be a strong and persistant source of ethnic identity.31 Again, Pentecostalism may be especially significant for understanding Protestantism’s ability to maintain ethnic identity among immigrants. The Latino church selected for this case study (Elim, described below) fits into Allan Anderson’s typology as “neo-pentecostal.” More specifically, Elim fits Anderson’s subgroup of “different independent churches”—the largest and most widespread type of neo-pentecostal churches (the other three being “Word of Faith,” “Third Wave,” and “Apostolic”).32 Although the term pentecostal has pro-

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Lucila Ek, “Allá en Guatemala: Transnationalism, Language, and Identity of a Pentecostal Guatemalan-American Young Woman,” The High School Journal (April/May 2009): 67–81. Luis León, “Born Again in East l.a.: The Congregation as Border Space,” in Gatherings in Diaspora: Religious Communities and the New Immigration, ed. R. Stephen Warner and Judith G. Wittner (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1998), 163–96. Vasquez, “Pentecostalism, Collective Identity, and Transnationalism,” 617–36. Note: according to Vasquez, for some Latino Protestants “national [-origin] identity is synonymous with the archaic, ‘corrupt’ Catholicism of feasts and processions that the believers have left behind” (624). Anna Adams, “Brincando el Charco/Jumping the Puddle: A Case Study of Pentecostalism’s Journey from Puerto Rico to New York to Allentown, Pennsylvania,” in Power, Politics, and Pentecostals in Latin America, ed. Edward Cleary and Hannah Stewart-Gambino (Boulder, co: Westview, 1997), 163–217. Daniel Ramirez, Migrating Faith: Pentecostalism in the United States and Mexico, 1906–1966 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2015). David Smilde, Reason to Believe: Cultural Agency in Latin American Evangelicalism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007). Allan Anderson, “Varieties, Taxonomies and Definition,” in Studying Global Pentecostalism:

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voked nearly as much debate about its definition as has the word ethnicity,33 the term in this study is used generally following Robert Mapes Anderson’s classic exposition. He refers to churches and groups that are pentecostal as those that are “concerned primarily with the experience of the working of the Holy Spirit and the practice of spiritual gifts.”34 Also important for our study is that scholars find that Pentecostalism lends itself to adapting to existing local cultural practices and reinforcing localized cultural markers.35 While adaptation to local cultures is an important characteristic, the enculturated quality of Pentecostalism—as demonstrated in our case study—reveals a resistance to change from new local environments, resisting cultural modifications in the face of migration. Once enculturated religious practices are deemed as sacred, they become less amenable to change. As Allan Anderson writes, “In these migratory processes the various movements remain stubbornly consistent, for they see the ‘world’ as a hostile place to move into and ‘possess’ for Christ.”36 Pressures to assimilate to a new culture post-migration are interpreted by pentecostal immigrants as attacks on one’s faith. Thus, enculturated Pentecostalism operates as a culturally conservative force (working to maintain status quo of ethnic identity and cultural practice) because of its doctrine of separation from the world.

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Theories and Methods, ed. Allan Anderson, Michael Bergunder, Andre Droogers, and Cornelis Van Der Laan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010), 13–29 at 19. Allan Anderson, Michael Bergunder, Andre Droogers, and Cornelis Van Der Laan, eds., Studying Global Pentecostalism: Theories and Methods (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010). Robert Mapes Anderson, Vision of the Disinherited: The Making of American Pentecostalism (Peabody, ma: Hendrickson, 1979), 4. Anderson, Bergunder, et al., eds., Studying Global Pentecostalism, 1–2; David Martin, Pentecostalism, the World their Parish (Malden, ma: Blackwell, 2002), 6; Richard Flory and Kimon H. Sargeant, “Conclusion: Pentecostalism in Global Perspective,” in Spirit and Power: The Growth and Global Impact of Pentecostalism, ed. Donald E. Miller, Kimon H. Sargeant, and Richard Flory (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 297–316 at 304; Gerardo Martí, “The Adaptability of Pentecostalism: The Fit between Prosperity Theology and Globalized Individualization in a Los Angeles Church,” Pneuma: The Journal of the Society for Pentecostal Studies 34 (2012): 5–25; Donald E. Miller, “Introduction: Pentecostalism as a Global Phenomenon,” in Spirit and Power: the Growth and Global Impact of Pentecostalism, ed. Donald E. Miller, Kimon H. Sargeant, and Richard Flory (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 1–19 at 16. Allan H. Anderson, “The Emergence of a Multidimensional Global Missionary Movement: Trends, Patterns, and Expressions,” in Spirit and Power: the Growth and Global Impact of Pentecostalism, ed. Donald E. Miller, Kimon H. Sargeant, and Richard Flory (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 25–41 at 28.

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Broadly speaking, the religious history of Latin America affirms that Protestantism does not lack the capacity to maintain ethnic identity. Though hard numbers on Pentecostals around the world are difficult to obtain, “it appears that Latin America has the largest number of pentecostal and charismatic Christians, followed by Africa and then Asia.”37 Regarding Pentecostalism in Latin America in particular, Cleary asserts that Pentecostalism “grew especially from experience in Latin America rather than being imported from Europe or North America.”38 Chesnut explains that this is because Pentecostalism “singlehandedly created religious and social space where Latin Americans from the popular classes are free not to be Catholic.”39 The indigenous accessibility to leadership is a primary way in which local people and their cultures are integrated into Pentecostalism: most pentecostal pastors are homegrown sons set apart by “a healthy dose of charisma,” with little formal training required.40 In contrast, most Roman Catholic priests continue to be foreigners—a significant trend considering that Catholicism has had more than five hundred years to become established in the hemisphere.41 Historical research therefore supports that Pentecostalism—with its space for legitimated freedom from Catholicism and local adaptation to culture, particularly (although not exclusively) among Latinos—may be especially suitable for indigenous growth. This becomes even clearer when we consider specific places like Guatemala. Protestantism’s success in Guatemala is attributed to the cultural contextualization that initially began with pioneering North American missionaries. McCleary and Pesina write: The original u.s. missionaries (Presbyterians, the Nazarenes, Primitive Methodists, Friends, and the nondenominational Central American Mission) were successful and welcomed by the indigenous populations for 37 38

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Donald E. Miller, “Introduction: Pentecostalism as a Global Phenomenon,” 1–19 at 9. Edward Cleary, “Introduction: Pentecostals, Prominence, and Politics,” in Power, Politics, and Pentecostals in Latin America, ed. Edward Cleary and Hannah Stewart-Gambino (Boulder, co: Westview, 1997), 1–24 at 8. R. Andrew Chesnut, “Spirited Competition: Pentecostal Success in Latin America’s New Religious Marketplace,” in Spirit and Power: The Growth and Global Impact of Pentecostalism, ed. Donald E. Miller, Kimon H. Sargeant, and Richard Flory (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 65–82 at 65. This trend is also found in the United States, for both Pentecostals and Catholics. Catholics had been slow in the adoption of indigenous clergy and the struggle to raise up indigenous leaders. See Eduardo C. Fernandez. Mexican-American Catholics (Mahwah, nj: Paulist Press, 2007). Ibid., 77, 81.

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several reasons. The Protestants immediately began translating the Bible into the indigenous languages. But in order to accomplish this, they lived among the indigenous populations as they lived, befriending them and incorporating them into their work as well as evangelizing to them. Rather than devaluing the indigenous way of life and their languages, the Protestants translated the Scripture as well as the Popol Vuh, the sacred text of the Maya.42 McCleary and Pesina further argue that “the first Protestant missions to Guatemala made a shift from conversion … to developing indigenous forms of cultural syncretization that eventually allowed for Pentecostals and neo-Pentecostals to become the fastest growing segment of Protestantism.”43 Guatemala is therefore exemplary of the successful adaptation of Pentecostalism to local cultures.44 Wilson argues that the phenomenal growth of autochthonous (that is, indigenous or native) pentecostal groups is best explained by Pentecostalism’s adaptability to Guatemalan culture, stating that the “basic values and social structures” of the indigenous culture were “reinforced” among Pentecostals. For Wilson, Pentecostalism provided “a cultural idiom” that preserved and implemented their traditional values “even more consistently and fervently.”45 Other researchers find that worship practices common in Pentecostalism appealed to Maya groups, especially since speaking in tongues had unforseen similarities to traditional Maya religious practices.46 McCleary and Pesina plainly conclude, “Pentecostalism with its more flexible forms of worship (singing, clapping, testimonials, miracle healing, prophesying, loud group praying) and a decentralized structure easily adapted to the indigenous cultures.”47 42

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Rachel M. McCleary and José de Jesús Pesina, “Religious Competition, Protestant Syncretization, and Conversion in Guatemala since the 1880s” (paper presented at the annual meeting of asrec, Arlington, va, April 2011), 32. Ibid., 1. Italics added. Anderson, Bergunder, et al., eds., Studying Global Pentecostalism; Gerardo Martí, “The Adaptability of Pentecostalism: The Fit between Prosperity Theology and Globalized Individualization in a Los Angeles Church,” Pneuma: The Journal of the Society for Pentecostal Studies 34 (2012): 5–25. Ibid., 152–53. Jacqueline Hagan, “Religion and the Process of Migration: A Case Study of a Maya Transnational Community,” in Religion across Borders, ed. Helen Rose Ebaugh and Janet Saltzman Chafetz (Walnut Creek, ca: Altamira, 2002), 78; and Virginia Garrard-Burnett, Protestantism in Guatemala: Living in the New Jerusalem (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1998), 118. McCleary and Pesina, “Religious Competition,” 16.

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Roman Catholicism has not fared as well in Guatemala. Although Catholicism has been the dominant religion in Latin America since the conquest, it has also had varying levels of absorption in local cultures. At the outset, a variety of factors limited Catholicism’s reach, especially difficulties associated with efforts toward evangelism and catechism created by geography, distance, and lack of transportation. In addition, the paucity of priests in certain regions compounded all these problems. The already established, local, and indigenous religious practitioners also resisted being proselytized. As some Latin American nations gained independence, the democratic ideal of separation of church and state led to violent outbursts against Roman Catholics, wounds that healed slowly. In more recent history, post-Vatican ii Roman Catholicism changed its conservative focus, one that traditionally aligned with national elites, to a more progressive stance supporting poorer and marginalized populations. In other nations, the official Roman Catholic Church turned a blind eye to native government officials’ widespread human rights violations. In the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, the spiritual authority of the Roman Catholic Church further eroded as multiple accounts of abuses by its leaders were publicized.48 Guatemala in particular has had a weak association with Roman Catholicism since the conquest, when a small number of priests found the challenges of mountainous terrain and multiple different Maya dialects difficult to overcome. Those challenges continued throughout the colonial period, impeding efforts at evangelism and catechism.49 Roman Catholicism continued to struggle after independence. According to David Martin, “The problem for the Catholic Church [in Guatemala is] a history of disorganization, dating back to ferocious anti-clerical legislation in the 1870s.”50 The mid-twentieth century brought forth antagonism between Maya groups and Catholic Action workers regarding the orthodoxy of certain popular religious practices.51 Catholics suffered violent government-sponsored attacks during the Civil War in the late 1970s and early 1980s, notably including a random murder of priests and their parishioners. Many Catholics escaped through flight into Evangelicalism.52

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Cleary, “Introduction,” 10. Deborah Berhó, “Factors Contributing to Indigenous Language Acceptance during the Colonial Period: A Comparative Study of Paraguay and Guatemala” (research paper for Latin American Colonial History, Dr. Judy Bieber, University of New Mexico, 1995). Martin, World their Parish, 86. Wilson, “Guatemalan Pentecostals,” 140. Hagan, “Religion and the Process of Migration,” 77.

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In short, from the earliest colonial period to the recent past, Roman Catholicism has failed to flourish in Guatemala. In comparison, the presence of Protestantism is extensive and has a sufficiently long history to be considered indigenous. Moreover, it was legitimated by the national government. According to Wilson, President Rufino Barrios in 1882 invited Presbyterians to Guatemala and imposed a de facto Protestantism.53 Since then, Protestantism grew fast enough that the proportion of active Catholics to active Protestants resulted in a lopsided ratio of 1:4.54 A 2014 Pew Research Center Report indicates that Guatemala is now 41 percent Protestant.55 Some towns have a significant Protestant majority, and informal reports from participants in our study indicate the percentage of evangélicos in local towns like Almolonga is as high as 90 percent.56 Focusing on Almolonga, Garrard-Burnett estimates a lower percentage than this but generally agrees with the predominance of Protestants: “One factor that clearly distinguishes Almolonga from other villages in the region is that it is a Protestant town. According to the 2001 municipal census, 70 percent of the residents are Evangelicals, belonging to some 21 churches, the vast majority of which are Pentecostal.”57 Mainline and Holiness Protestant groups may have been initially important in Guatemala (given that national legislation affirmed the earliest encounters with Protestantism), but today Pentecostals are the largest and most influential group. Moreover, nearly since their inception, pentecostal groups have been truly independent of North American influence.58 An evangelical, mostly pentecostal, revival swept through Guatemala in the 1970s,59 resulting in a further, striking shift in the population toward Protestantism. Such long-term demographic affiliations means that the Pentecostalism of Guatemala is at least third-generation and, therefore, qualifies as historically rooted.60 So, while Protestantism was “imported” into Guatemala, its prevalence and enculturation makes Guatemalan Pentecostalism a native, indigenous religious orientation. 53 54 55 56 57

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Wilson, “Guatemalan Pentecostals,” 141–42. Martin, World their Parish, 86. Pew Research Center, “Religion in Latin America: Widespread Change in a Historically Catholic Region” (November 13, 2014), 14. Evangélico is the term widely used in Latin America to categorize Protestants. It does not carry the same doctrinal or practice implications as its English cognate, “evangelical.” Garrard-Burnett, “Casting Out Demons in Almolonga: Spiritual Warfare and Economic Development in a Mayan Town,” in David Westerlund, ed., Global Pentecostalism, 4th ed., (London and New York: I.B. Tauris Press, 2009), 209–25 at 213. Wilson, “Guatemalan Pentecostals,” 143. Garrard-Burnett, Protestantism in Guatemala. Calvillo and Bailey, “Latino Religious,” 62.

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In sum, by further nuancing the types and contexts of Protestantism, we find that Protestantism is not necessarily weaker than Roman Catholicism in sustaining ethnic identity. Moreover, evidence from Latino Protestant immigrants indicates a variety of viable Latino ethnic identities maintained in different settings in the u.s. by different Latino groups. Pentecostalism may be especially capable of maintaining Latino ethnic identity due to its noted adaptability to global contexts and the indigenization of its religious practices. More specific to our own research, Pentecostalism in Guatemala affirms the capacity for Pentecostalism to adapt to local cultures and become a newly indigenized religion. In examining Pentecostalism among Guatemalans in an Oregon church, we find that their religious orientation contains salient (and transferable) cultural practices that remain available for emigrants in their new host countries. Therefore, Protestantism does not necessarily lack the ability to sustain indigenous cultures after migration. Even more, the practice of Pentecostalism—as affirmed by our observations among immigrant Guatemalans in the United States—may be especially capable of maintaining a strong and stable ethnic identity.

Methodology and Research Context To examine the capacity of Protestantism to encourage and sustain the homeland culture of immigrants, this research draws on qualitative data from a Guatemalan pentecostal congregation in the Pacific Northwest, specifically interviews and participant observations at La Iglesia de Restauración, Misión Elim, in Hillsboro, Oregon. Field Work and Interviews The first author is a practicing nonpentecostal Christian from a Holiness denominational background. With a Spanish fluency rated superior by the American Council for the Teaching of Foreign Languages, she fully participated in and understood all occurrences in the congregation, although as an Anglo her presence in worship services never went unnoticed. Preliminary data collection occurred in 2007, followed by more extensive immersion in the congregation from 2014 to 2015. She gathered data during the latter period as part of the Latino Protestant Congregations (lpc) Project, a nationwide study funded by Lilly Endowment.61 She conducted ethnographic research at

61

See Mulder, Ramos, and Martí, Latino Protestants in America.

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the church following strict protocols and an interview schedule developed by the lpc Project directors, Gerardo Martí and Mark Mulder. Field observations included twelve worship services or church events with extensive field notes that were later transcribed, and interviews of ten individuals (five men and five women). Transcription of the digitally recorded interviews followed at the Calvin College Center for Social Research in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and were reviewed by the first author for accuracy. The pastor and his wife, the elder, the worship leader, as well as several other leaders and laypersons consented to interviews. Two of the interviewees were second-generation Guatemalans, five first-generation Guatemalans, two first-generation Mexicans, and one firstgeneration Salvadoran. Several other Guatemalans and one Mexican were also informally interviewed as part of immersion into the activities of the congregation. While the sample for interviews included non-Guatemalans in an effort to achieve diversity and include the range of pan-Latino ethnic backgrounds involved in the church, those interviewees are practically the only non-Guatemalans in the congregation, a distinct minority within the whole church. The coauthors jointly analyzed the ethnographic data and cowrote the interpretations of the relevance of past research literature and the significance of empirical patterns found throughout this article. Regarding the demographics of this congregation, most members (about 70 percent) are from Guatemala and speak the Maya dialect Ki’ché. Their leader, Pastor Jeremías Diego, though also an indigenous Guatemalan (not ladino, the term in Guatemala for a more “westernized” mestizo from the capital), originated from a different Maya community and speaks both Spanish and Kanjoval. Spanish functions as the common language among members and in all church gatherings. About 95 percent of the adults are first-generation immigrants from Guatemala; only two or three people from El Salvador and a handful of Mexicans can be found attending any particular gathering at this church of approximately two hundred adults.62 No other nationalities are represented. This church could not be characterized as pan-ethnic since indigenous Guatemalans remain dominant and the other congregants accommodate to their practices. Significantly, almost all of the Guatemalans hail from Almolonga, a town consistently characterized as being high-majority pentecostal (see above). Because of the predominance of individuals from a single sending town, La Iglesia de Restauración could be characterized as an “enclave church.”63 The town of Almolonga, in the Department of Quetzaltenango, has

62 63

The first author counted those present at every field visit. Vasquez, “Pentecostalism, Collective Identity, and Transnationalism,” 632.

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about 17,000 inhabitants, 95 percent of whom are Ki’ché-speaking Maya. Following the evangelical revival in the 1970s, many evangelical churches were established there, the agricultural economy expanded dramatically, and the crime rate dropped so low that the town’s four jails have been closed. Featured as a “miracle town” in Transformations (a widely distributed Christian film purporting the power of the gospel to transform society), Almolonga became famous in American evangelical circles.64 In addition, Almolonga has been the focus of several sociological, religious, and economic studies.65 Latinos in Oregon Oregon does not have a long history of having a large Hispanic population, unlike the states on the Southwestern United States border and some on the East Coast. Though the region to the south of Oregon’s border was part of Mexico until 1848, few Latinos lived in Oregon at the beginning of the twentieth century. The Bracero Program, however, brought more than 15,000 workers from Mexico to the fields and orchards of Oregon.66 After World War ii, many Mexicans stayed on at least part of the year, working in agriculture. Oregon’s Latino population arrived mostly in the late 1980s and has continued to experience dramatic growth through continued immigration and new births. In 1987, when the Immigration Reform and Control Act was passed with its Special Agricultural Worker (saw) provision, immigration from Mexico to Oregon spiked, with an estimated 23,000 people seeking residence in the state under saw.67 Very few Caribbeans or South Americans live in Oregon. Instead, in addition to the Mexican migrants and Mexican Americans already living in the area, the state received Central Americans fleeing the violence of civil wars in the 1980s, including a number of Guatemalans whose first language is a Maya dialect. Overall, census data indicates that the Hispanic population of Oregon grew 144 percent between 1990 and 2000.

64

65

66 67

Transformations (The Sentinel Group, 1999), dvd. Nevertheless, the video fails to mention several simultaneous changes in Almolonga that could have contributed to its prosperity, such as the end of civil war violence and the introduction of chemical fertilizer and other modern farming techniques, as well as regional improvements to infrastructure. See, e.g., Sonia Arbona, “Commercial Agriculture and Agrochemicals in Almolonga, Guatemala,” The Geographical Review 88 (1998): 47–63; Garrard-Burnett, Protestantism in Guatemala; and Garrard-Burnett, “Casting Out Demons.” Erasmo Gamboa and Carolyn Buan, eds., Nosotros: The Hispanic People of Oregon: Essays and Recollections (Portland, or: Oregon Council for the Humanities, 1995), 41. Ibid., 65.

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La Iglesia de Restauración is located in Hillsboro, a city of approximately 97,000 residents,68 the fifth-largest in Oregon.69 The seat of Washington County, Hillsboro is located twenty miles east of Portland. For many years Hillsboro was a rural agriculture-based town with migrant camps clustered on its outskirts. In the latter part of the twentieth century, Hillsboro became an important bedroom community for people employed in Portland, their commute facilitated by Highway 26 and the installation of a light rail line. Farmers sold their strawberry fields to developers who replaced crops with houses and apartment complexes. Intel Corporation and other computer industry firms opened production sites in Hillsboro around this time, and the locals nicknamed the area along Highway 26 “the Silicon Forest.” Hillsboro International Airport, part of the Port of Portland, is just a few miles from the church building on the outer edge of town where typical suburban developments of shopping malls and upscale apartments continue to proliferate. According to the 2010 census, Latinos account for 22.6 percent of Hillsboro’s population (with Mexicans being the majority at 19.1 percent and Guatemalans being only 0.7 percent), and downtown Hillsboro visibly attests to that growth with dozens of small businesses that cater to Latino residents with Spanish-language signs. The Congregation’s Pentecostal Orientation With respect to the congregation’s pentecostal orientation, the church is part of Misión Elim Internacional, a neo-pentecostal church network founded in Guatemala in the 1970s that grew exceedingly in the following decades. This exceptional growth is often attributed to its systematic cell group program of home Bible studies at which lay leaders are expected to grow their group, then split it, multiplying it into ever more new groups—a method for small group ministry modeled after the famed Korean pentecostal cell-based church led by Yonggi Cho.70 The Elim congregational movement spread from Guatemala to El Salvador, and the El Salvador church split definitively from Elim Guatemala in 1983 over doctrinal and leadership differences. Civil wars in both countries made official name changes difficult, so both groups preserved the name 68 69 70

See https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/table/PST045216/00, accessed August 26, 2014. See http://www.hillsboro-oregon.gov/, accessed August 26, 2014. For an overview of Cho’s church and ministry, see Young-Hoon Lee, “The Life and Ministry of David Yonggi Cho and the Yoido Full Gospel Church,” Asian Journal of Pentecostal Studies 7 (2004): 3–20; Sung-hoon Myung and Hong Young-gi, eds., Charis and Charisma: David Yonggi Cho and the Growth of Yoido Full Gospel Church (Oxford: Regnum Books International, 2003).

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Misión Cristiana Elim.71 The central Elim church in El Salvador at one time claimed to be the second largest church in the world, with membership estimates between 80,000 and 90,000.72 Elim El Salvador planted a congregation called Iglesia de Restauración in Los Angeles, California in 1986, pastored by René Molina.73 The founding and current pastor of the church in Hillsboro, the previously mentioned Jeremías Diego, immigrated from Guatemala to the United States in 1989 and accepted Christ in 1992 in the Los Angeles Elim church. After about a year of regular attendance, he became a cell group leader, then a deacon, and later a cell group supervisor.74 In 1996 and while on vacation, Pastor Jeremías visited a friend and fellow Christian in Oregon and held a nightly Bible study at his friend’s apartment. They invited neighbors in the apartment complex who joined. Though Pastor Jeremías soon returned to California, the group continued to grow, and the Los Angeles congregation eventually commissioned him to return to Oregon to plant and pastor the nascent church in Hillsboro. From the beginning, most attenders were Guatemalans like Pastor Jeremías. Aside from tracing its beginnings to the neo-pentecostal awakening in Central America, the leaders and members of the church adamantly identify it as pentecostal “because of its emphasis on the Holy Spirit.” The pastor’s wife, responding to the question, “What kind of Christian are you?” simply said, “I consider that I am an evangelical Christian, born again, and Pentecostal.”

Results Our case study of La Iglesia de Restauración in Hillsboro, Oregon, demonstrates the manner in which one manifestation of global Pentecostalism provides a variety of practices that successfully preserve the homeland culture of

71

72

73 74

“Historia,” http://www.elim.org.sv/historia/, accessed January 14, 2015. For more on Elim in Central America, see Joel Comiskey, elim: La apasionante historia de una iglesia transformando una ciudad para Jesús (Moreno Valley, ca: ccs Publishing, 2013). Nick Street. Faith, Trauma and Emotion: Pentecostalism in El Salvador. Video (usc Pentecostal and Charismatic Research Initiative, 2013) available at: https://youtu.be/ 7V8Lg3zmZCU, min. 1:30; Timothy Wadkins e-mail message to first author, May 18, 2015. “Historia,” http://restauracion.com/, accessed January 14, 2015. We note that the cell church model is a very strict, holiness, gendered model which does explain much about how the congregation comes to animate a particular version of Pentecostalism.

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these immigrants. More specifically, the analysis reveals that the worship practices at Restauración remain replete with reminders of their home nation of Guatemala, of their indigenous identity, and of the particular religious culture created by Elim El Salvador. Though the pastor and other leaders give lip service to the idea of the “transcendence” of religious identity over ethnic identity,75 there are very few non-Guatemalan Latinos who attend this church.76 Rather, the dominant character of this congregation is “retrospective,”77 determinedly oriented toward the sending church in Los Angeles and the pentecostal indigenous community of Almolonga, Guatemala. Overall, the pattern of our results is presented under three broad categories: Products, People, and Practices. Under these three categories, we present the flows of products, people, and practices at Restauración that affirm and sustain an ethnic continuity with the native sending indigenous culture in Guatemala and the church culture of Elim initially established in Central America. Products To begin, “products” are material objects, including clothing, food, and other physical items. Among the members of this church, rather than purchasing clothes for worship and daily life readily available at various stores in their adoptive nation, many worshippers at Restauración wear items that come directly from Guatemala. These clothes are visibly characterized by styles and markings that represent specific ties to their indigenous identity or rural town. For example, several women used a traditional reboso to tie their babies to their backs, and some women and younger girls wore the traditional woven traje or huipil and corte (skirt and blouse) to services. (According to Ávila, the huipil has been an ethnic and filial marker in female clothing since pre-Columbian times, with distinctive designs for each village or people group.)78 Some older men wore straw hats typically used by Guatemalan farm workers, placing them on their heads as they left the worship service. A baby carrier was covered with an indigenous white cloth and distinctive embroidery, a typical Guatemalan style.

75 76

77 78

See Martí, “Affinity, Identity, and Transcendence.” Non-Guatemalans who do not feel comfortable being led by an indigenous Guatemalan and worshiping as a minority within a Guatemalan congregation do not stay here, though the informants do not state it in ethnic terms, but rather in terms of the practices of separate seating and preference for strict rules. See Calvillo and Bailey, “Latino Religious.” Gerardo S. Ávila Pardo, “Etnografía de las comunidades del municipio de Coatzintla Veracruz, un estudio sobre la identidad étnica” (ba thesis, Universidad Veracruzana, mx, 2006), 34–35.

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Many women and younger girls wore traditional Central American-style pendant earrings: gold with colored stones embedded. Some women wore modern blouses and skirts in combinations that might be considered as clashing according to u.s. aesthetic preferences but are commonly found in Central America, such as a striped blouse paired with a leopard print skirt. Some accessories were specific to Latin American pentecostal worship; for example, many women wore lace head coverings, a practice in many but not all pentecostal churches throughout Mexico and Central America. To sum up, much of the clothing observed at church services originates in Guatemala, worn just as they were prior to immigration, understood to be typical of Guatemalan style, and accepted as normal and everyday wear (rather than as unusual or exotic). Because Sunday services occur during the dinner hour, the church literally capitalizes on the congregation’s hunger by selling typical Guatemalan food to raise funds. Familiar food items are prepared the way they are made in Guatemala as much as possible (given the availability of ingredients), deliberately avoiding any “American” food or deli items. (Costco is directly across the street from the church building, and several fast food restaurants are also nearby.) Special events always include Guatemalan specialty food items. At a joint communion service with a “daughter” congregation, members prepared and sold long white bolillo rolls filled with black bean puree. Another day, women at a youth event in the park busily patted small, thick, Guatemalanstyle corn tortillas and cooked them on a comal (griddle) to be served with carne asada and cabbage slaw. In addition to traditionally prepared meals, many snack items and beverages commonly found in “Mexican” grocery stores (such as cacahuates japoneses) are regularly offered for sale in the church lobby, another fundraiser. So, while providing food is a common aspect of American church life, Restauración works to provide Guatemalan food that is recognizable and familiar to its members (such as black bean puree on bolillo; small, thick corn tortillas; a cabbage “slaw” with vinegary mixture, and so forth), often prepared in a traditional manner. Clothing and food are not the only products that continually affirm Guatemalan ethnic identity. In the church lobby, many products from Guatemala are also available for sale, including the previously mentioned head coverings made of lace, and purses and bags of traditional Guatemalan woven cloth, some embroidered with the word Guatemala. There are also tables offering religious books, music cds, and concert dvds. All are in Spanish and feature familiar leaders and musicians, including popular Guatemalan Christian recording artists such as Juan Carlos Alvarado, Erick Porta, and the group Miel San Marcos. The obviously Guatemalan origin of many of the products, authors, and artists all commend Guatemala as a national source of items useful for faith

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practices, and their sale in the church lobby implicitly endorses their spiritual appropriateness. The availability of books and music in Spanish rather than in English—most congregants are fluent in English and surrounded by English most of their daily lives—suggests that using and preserving Spanish, the principal language of Guatemala, is endorsed by the church as opposed to urging assimilation to an American, English-speaking culture. Overall, the congregation engages and promotes the members’ native culture through the provision and consumption of material goods that stand as distinctly and recognizably Guatemalan. People Although Restauración is an independent pentecostal church, it continually affirms its identity by participating in a network of interdependent relationships rather than by affiliation with an American denominational structure.79 First, Pastor Jeremías remains very connected to the people and culture of Guatemala. Frequent references to his homeland put his own ethnic identity on display, and his sermons remind the congregation of their common origin.80 He frequently tells stories that are spiced with anecdotes, which often mention food, about life in his home village in Guatemala. For example, illustrating the enjoyment believers should find in reading the Bible, he said, “Have you ever eaten honey? In my homeland, during Holy Week, which really has nothing holy about it, our custom is to have a basket of bread … and oh, we eat tamales with beans in them, maybe not in your hometown or in the capital, but in my hometown this is how it is: on a certain day they bring bread, and we dip it in honey, and eat it. It is so sweet! That is how the Word should be to us!” Although it is a personal story, the memory he vocalizes is a shared one, a memory drawing others to similar remembrances. And the stories he shares are not just from the past. Pastor Jeremías travels annually to Guatemala. He even owns property in Guatemala. In many ways, the pastor appears to be more committed to

79

80

For more on Pentecostalism and networked churches in the United States, see Kate Bowler, Blessed: A History of the American Prosperity Gospel (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013); Brad Christerson and Richard Flory, The Rise of Network Christianity: How Independent Leaders Are Changing the Religious Landscape (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017). For a case study of an independent pentecostal church, see Gerardo Martí, Hollywood Faith: Holiness, Prosperity, and Ambition in a Los Angeles Church (New Brunswick, nj: Rutgers University Press, 2008). On the display of ethnic identity in preaching, see Gerardo Martí, “ ‘I Was a Muslim, but Now I Am a Christian’: Preaching, Legitimation, and Identity Management in a Southern Evangelical Church,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 55 (2016): 250–70.

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life in Guatemala than in the United States: members of the church have discussed plans to return permanently to Guatemala some day, and the pastor had mentioned in a sermon that he might retire there. As part of their organizational commitments, Restauración sends several types of “remittances,” including money, back to Central America. As mentioned previously, the pastor sends quarterly reports to the home megachurch in El Salvador, along with 10 percent of the tithes received. Each worship service is also filmed and transmitted en vivo y en directo (live and direct) over the Internet, and some families in Guatemala watch. The effort to keep close ties to the mother church in El Salvador sharply contrasts with the lack of any ties with any Spanish-speaking churches in Oregon. Pastor Jeremías does not interact with local pastors, does not encourage joint services with other congregations (except a “daughter” church started in Portland), and discourages participation in other churches, claiming fears of doctrinal tainting.81 For Pastor Jeremías, any desire to connect to the broader Christian church is solely geared toward maintaining close contact with their sister churches in the u.s. and Central America and not to American congregations—even other Latino Protestant congregations—that are geographically closer and potentially easier to sustain. This helps explain the priority for his returning to Guatemala at least annually for visits and extended preaching tours. The pastor is not the only person in the congregation who sustains intimate ties to Guatemala. Indeed, many members of Restauración travel regularly from Oregon to Guatemala and vice versa. The constant flow of visitors from Guatemala to Oregon and of congregants settled in Oregon who travel back to Guatemala maintains a continuity of freshness to relationships and awareness of cultural practices in both places. Although the church buzzes with this back-and-forth rhythm of transnational ties, any casual observer would not be able readily to notice this. For example, at one church service, the first author greeted an older woman with long dark hair flecked with white and dressed in a traditional traje. The greeting was in Spanish, and the woman did not say much in return. Later it was revealed that she was the mother of one of the church members. She predominantly spoke Ki’ché, not Spanish, and had arrived from Guatemala for a short visit. The presence of older people like her in

81

On the sociological dynamics of enforcing orthodoxy, see Sorcha A. Brophy, “Orthodoxy as Project: Temporality and Action in an American Protestant Denomination,” Sociology of Religion 77 (2016): 123–43. On the religious consequences of continual exposure to diversity, see Gerardo Martí, “Religious Reflexivity: The Effect of Continual Novelty and Diversity on Individual Religiosity,” Sociology of Religion 76 (2016): 1–13.

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the church, members who manifest older cultural ways connected to the homeland, remind the community of indigenous language and traditions—even when exposed through brief glimpses and short-term guests. Younger migrants fresh from the native country also come to the church and steadily replenish the cultural well of the congregation. A young man at another Bible study, newly arrived from Almolonga, told the group that there were many young men like him who dream of “going north” to satisfy their curiosity and yearn to return with a “nice pickup truck.” The church willingly helps young, ambitious adventurers like him from the homeland, pooling their shared resources and providing greater social and financial support than any single family member ever could. Members also use travel and relational connections to bring back physical items from Guatemala. For example, the many products available for sale in the lobby (described above) are brought directly to the church from Guatemala by members of the congregation. One interviewee said, “It is easy to get things from relatives.” He explained that people drive pick-ups to Guatemala, leave them there, and then return to the United States by plane, carrying items from family members in Almolonga for delivery in Oregon. This is how extended family members receive gifts of typical Guatemalan clothing for their children.82 The baby-carrier cover (mentioned above) had been sent by an abuela (grandmother). Another abuela was the source of a child’s beautifully woven traje; her mother said that it had taken the grandmother in Almolonga a month to weave the blouse alone. This dependable, unofficial courier system allows congregants to obtain culturally typical items from Guatemala not available in Oregon. Family and friends from the homeland provide access to highly valued cultural markers that represent tradition and reinforce identity, such as a child’s traje. Moreover, while being an indigenous Guatemalan is not always esteemed or celebrated—even in Guatemala—in this church, indigenous origins are not shameful. The congregation provides a space where indigenous identity is freely displayed and even honored. Not only do congregants regularly move themselves and various cultural goods back and forth between Guatemala and Oregon, they also participate in an ongoing exchange of respected church leaders. The pastor’s trips to Central America frequently function as extended preaching tours throughout Guatemala and include a visit to the home church in El Salvador. In turn, he

82

This courier system is quite similar to the one used by members of a dominantly Guatemalan congregation in Houston, described by Hagan in “Religion and the Process of Migration,” 86.

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invites leaders to Oregon for special events. Central American pastors, evangelists, and worship leaders aid in programming and participate in worship services. For example, the church brought well-known Guatemalan worship leader and musician Juan Carlos Alvarado for a high-profile concert at the Portland Rose Garden coliseum. Restauración sponsored him, rented the coliseum, sold tickets, and publicized. This type of neo-pentecostal transnational networking has been documented by others and consistently described as serving to sustain ethnic continuity and reinforce culturally grounded beliefs.83 It is worth noting that the charismatic authority84 inherent in transnational ministry as evident among these pastors is rooted in their ability to engage effectively with the same population, groups that share a common cultural base, regardless of where they are geographically located—in our case, their Guatemalan pentecostal brothers and sisters. Finally, being among people whom they see as sharing a common ethnic culture matters to the members of La Iglesia de Restauración. Those interviewed consistently indicated that they attend this church because they highly value worshipping in a church with other co-ethnic group members like themselves. As one husband and wife, Héctor (born in Almolonga) and Mónica (secondgeneration Mexican American, third generation to attend this church, and assimilated into this Guatemalan congregation), together said, “We feel more comfortable there with our people than with Americans.” Practices Because “practices” utilize “products,” the two are socially intertwined. For example, one set of “products,” publications by the home megachurch in El Salvador, guides congregational practices. These publications include a manual of standards expected from members who assume leadership roles and discussion guides used for weekly home Bible studies. These types of periodicals are common among pentecostal churches and have been characteristic from the outset. Anderson explains that publications initially “provided the mass media for the spread of Pentecostal ideas,”85 but now publications from the home church both spread and maintain its teachings across their spiritual diaspora. Pentecostal structures like Restauración include a strict cell-group structure with hierarchical leadership and regular reports back to the mother church.

83 84 85

Anderson, “Emergence of a Multidimensional Global Missionary Movement,” 28. Max Weber, Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology (Berkley, ca: University of California Press, 1978), 24–26, 215–16, 217, 223–26, 237–38, 241–46, 251–54, 266–70. Anderson, “Emergence of a Multidimensional Global Missionary Movement,” 26.

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Firm accountability further reinforces cultural ties by stressing conformity to the standards dictated from the homeland. Pastoral leadership is highly esteemed, and the appointment of pastoral leadership is accomplished in a way that ensures that pastors are tightly aligned with cultural expectations. Pastor Jeremías’s story of internal, informal promotion toward becoming a lead pastor (described in a previous section) is typical. The neo-pentecostal system at Restauración assures that home-grown pastors, one of their own, promote other co-ethnics to leadership. Pentecostalism has historically emphasized spiritual gifts over theological education such that a male believer like Pastor Jeremías with not much more than an elementary school education, but possessing a healthy dose of charisma, can rise up through the pastoral ranks. Rewarding spiritual dynamism—as evident in Pastor Jeremías’s many successes in ministry—over academic preparation opens the potential for full-time pentecostal ministry to tens of thousands of impoverished male believers who would never qualify for the rigorous educational requirements of the Catholic priesthood or mainline Protestant ministry.86 By focusing on raising pastoral leaders through a succession of volunteer ranks in local churches, the leaders of pentecostal immigrant congregations are likely to be not only from the same cultural background but also from the same socioeconomic class and educational level as their flock. Andrew Chesnut finds that the practice of internal leadership recruitment and succession is key to the growth of Pentecostalism in Latin America, noting that after five hundred years, Roman Catholic priests remain predominantly foreigners. Pentecostal church leaders like those at Restauración are not imposed externally or educated “out of touch” with their congregation, since rigorous academic training is typically not required for ordination. Rather, promotion from within among culturally resonant people maintains consistent ties to the ethnic identity of both leaders and congregants. Restauración also maintains another cultural practice learned in Guatemala: seating men and women separately for worship. Pastor Jeremías explained this division during a sermon, saying, “Someone asked me why men and women sit separately in this church. This is not biblical. It is just the way in which we were taught.” In this way, the church acknowledges that its congregational practices are drawn from a culturally rooted meaning system, not an acultural spiritual mandate, further demonstrating that religion as found in this church is not a heavenly, neutral, or culturally transcendent space; it operates within and among understandings drawn from their native culture.

86

Chesnut, “Spirited Competition,” 77 and 81.

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Another worship leadership practice consistent with their native Guatemalan culture involves the visible identification of the roles for leaders made during worship services: they each wear a type of uniform. The various leadership roles in the church include deacons and deaconesses, children’s teachers, musicians, and cameramen. The deacons and deaconesses stand in the aisles during the worship music, facing the back rather than the front of the sanctuary. Each group chooses their clothing—children’s teachers wear a polo shirt with a church emblem; the male musicians, cameramen, and deacons wear a long-sleeved shirt of a specific color with black dress slacks and vest or suitcoat, and a tie; and the female deacons and musician wear a long black skirt, a long-sleeved blouse, a black vest, and a veil over their heads.87 Women’s veils are expected and available for sale in the lobby prior to services, and the deaconesses do not wear makeup or earrings. The display of all these roles, with their corresponding uniforms, are a pentecostal practice that honors members who uphold highly esteemed spiritually saturated positions in the church.88 As evidenced in this Oregon Elim congregation, Pentecostalism provides a person with a sense of identity that does not change post-migration. More specifically, the striking consistency of religion and culture between one’s native home and this immigrant congregation allows for those who have exercised spiritual leadership in Guatemala to readily understand and take on the same role in this American immigrant church. An elder in a home church in Guatemala could, after a short time of proving his character, readily assume that role again in Oregon. Language is another key practice. Language use in immigrant churches can be a controversial issue, tied as it is to ethnic identity yet essential for coordinating ministry and communicating tenets of the faith.89 Outside of Restauración services, mothers used the Ki’ché dialect to scold their children, and women spoke it to each other, as did older men after church. There are few Ki’ché speakers outside Guatemala, and the church is one of the few places

87

88

89

The first author asked the pastor if she needed to wear a veil since her hair is short and she did not want to offend anyone. He said no, that they were part of the uniform of the deaconesses. Richard Flory and Kimon H. Sargeant, “Conclusion: Pentecostalism in Global Perspective,” in Spirit and Power: The Growth and Global Impact of Pentecostalism, ed. Donald E. Miller, Kimon H. Sargeant, and Richard Flory (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013): 297–316 at 302. Helen Rose Ebaugh and Janet Saltzman Chafetz, “Dilemmas of Language in Immigrant Congregations: The Tie that Binds or the Tower of Babel?” Review of Religious Research 41 (2000): 432–52.

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where one can find a person with whom to speak this dialect. The fellowship before and after services and at casual events allows many opportunities for linguistic (and thus ethnic identity) maintenance. Although Ki’ché is used informally, the opportunity to speak such a rare tongue prevents language loss due to disuse. Furthermore, it allows those who are more comfortable and fluent in Ki’ché to communicate with greater ease without the anxiety of struggling to convey or understand a message in a second language they may never fully master. Hearing Ki’ché frequently spoken also distinguishes the ambiance of the church, giving a significant aspect of Guatemala’s indigenous culture a prominent place in this social space, which is noticeable even for those who are not fluent in the dialect. Although Ki’ché is present and largely welcome at the church, Spanish is the only language officially used at church events. English speakers are prevalent as well, but Spanish is central. This is a conscious decision made by the pastor. Choosing to use only Spanish reflects a “retrospective” attitude, clearly turned toward the homeland rather than toward the host culture. Furthermore, the promotion of Spanish for church services allows the congregation to connect with broader pentecostal teachings, music, and resources from trusted sources as the scope of Spanish language religious media is very broad. While there have always been Spanish-language materials in the United States for worship, the center of doctrinal authority in these writings is dominantly based in America, so they consist of originally English writings that are translated. At Restauración, the center of doctrinal authority lies with materials produced by the mother church in Central America. Latino-composed Spanish worship music is also central to the spiritual practices of the church. Approximately one-third of songs used in the worship services (26 of 79) were made famous by Guatemalan musicians or worship bands. (By comparison, songs originating in Mexico came in a close second, with 20 of 79.) Similar to books and pamphlets, a large body of worship music, both hymns and contemporary music, has been translated into Spanish from English and other languages, yet the leaders at Restauración who choose music for corporate worship prefer music recorded by Guatemalan and Mexican artists. Individual church members prefer them, too. The main worship leader, a secondgeneration immigrant in his twenties, said that he personally liked music by Hillsong that is translated into Spanish, but he found that the congregation and volunteer musicians—most of whom have had no formal musical training and some of whom are barely literate—struggled with Hillsong’s musical and lyrical complexities. He therefore selects “simpler” and more culturally familiar music, knowing such music to be more in line with the preferences of the worshippers. This young man’s preference for Hillsong music diverges from those

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of his immigrant co-ethnics, but there is strong incentive for him to offer up musical forms that his co-parishioners prefer, music originally written in Spanish. Essentially, the worship leader deliberately chooses to align the church’s music along the lines of cultural familiarity rather than pushing musicians and the congregation out of their comfort zones. Interviews with members revealed that many listened to Spanish-language Christian music exclusively and nearly continuously outside church: in their car, at home, and at work. English worship music is readily available on local radio and in multiple digital formats, but they do not listen to it. Members are encouraged to fill all parts of their lives with Christian messages. The pentecostal notion of shunning the “things of the world” turns them away from secular music; and for some, the uncertainty of understanding the English language leads them to shun English Christian music as well. More than reflecting a preference for the familiar and easily understandable, the interviews indicate that the choice to hear worship music in Spanish rather than English implies that they associate Spanish with Christianity and English with a secularized and pagan culture. Several members commented that the worship practices at La Iglesia de Restauración are “right,” specifically because they reflect the church practices of their home country—once again indicating a “retrospective” orientation in this Protestant congregation. One member said that she and her husband had attended another pentecostal church in Hillsboro for a short time but did not like that congregation’s mixed cultural practices, which included some “American” traditions. They were happy to find this church because “it does things like they do back home, the way I was brought up.” While a pentecostal orientation does not ensure that the church upholds only a native immigrant culture, the Guatemalan Pentecostalism found at Restauración provides and promotes culturally infused religious practices that resonate with those who desire continual affirmation of their particularistic Guatemalan ethnic identity.90

90

For a contrast between ethnic-specific and pan-ethnic Latino congregations, see Vasquez, “Pentecostalism, Collective Identity, and Transnationalism,” and Gerardo Martí, “The Diversity Affirming Latino: Ethnic Options and the Ethnic Transcendent Expression of American Latino Religious Identity,” in Sustaining Faith Traditions: Race, Ethnicity, and Religion among the Latino and Asian American Second Generation, ed. C.E. Chen and R. Jeung (New York: New York University Press, 2012). As an alternative to ethnic-affirming congregations, see Martí, A Mosaic of Believers.

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Discussion While some scholarship argues that Protestantism is especially weak in its capacity to maintain strong ethnic identities, other research, especially studies centered on Pentecostalism, argue that the adaptability of Pentecostalism to local cultures and the subsequent enculturation of religious practices in their churches allow these immigrant churches to support and strongly sustain their home ethnic cultures. Our analysis contributes to this more affirming thread of research, demonstrating how the structure of this Guatemalan pentecostal church in Oregon not only allows but encourages the maintenance of ethnic identity through the enculturated religious practices of the congregation. More specifically, our case study of a neo-pentecostal Guatemalan congregation indicates that there are multiple symbols, categorized here as “products” and “practices,” as well as a continuous flow of “people” between the homeland and the United States, by which members cultivate and maintain their ethnic identity. The provision of culturally familiar food, the custom of appointing pastoral leadership internally, the manner of engaging Spanish-language worship music, and other aspects of the congregation described above continually reinforce their homeland identity. In short, this Latino Protestant church demonstrates the capacity to nurture and encourage a native ethnic identity through a variety of social mechanisms. These include: participating in a specific network of transnational relationships, providing culturally distinctive ethnic symbols and a space to use them with pride and without fear of being misunderstood, hearing and using homeland languages (both Spanish and Ki’ché) at formal and informal events, and providing a culturally saturated religious identity buttressed by a homegrown leadership structure. Finally, and significantly, the doctrinal division between “the world” and “the church,” taught to church members and fortified through devotional materials, discourages and delays assimilation into the American host culture while simultaneously reinforcing the maintenance of “godly” indigenous practices that are legitimated within the church as appropriately religious. Ethnic practices are sacralized such that being spiritual often equates with acting as a recognizably familiar cultural member of one’s ethnic group.

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