SHARED VISIONS IN SHARED SPACE: LATINO AND EURO-AMERICAN IDENTITY TRANSFORMATION AT ST. REGIS CATHOLIC CHURCH
David Givens, MA
University of Pittsburgh, 2010
Throughout the history of the United States, the religious beliefs, traditions, and organizations of immigrant groups have often played important roles in establishing and redefining personal, interpersonal, and cultural identities. In contemporary society, a particularly relevant example of how religion influences processes of identity transformation can be seen within Latino communities in America. As Latinos now make up one third of all Catholics in America (Stevens-Arroyo 2008, 59), American Catholics of all racial and ethnic backgrounds increasingly find themselves confronted with what it means to be Catholic in relation to both religious and ethnic identity.
This is the situation confronting church leaders at St. Regis Catholic Church in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Similar to many other parishes in the United States, St. Regis faces the difficult task of serving several distinct ethnic groups within the congregation in this case, predominantly older Italian-American parishioners and parishioners of Central and South American descent with unique religious heritages and expectations. Interacting in this shared religious space, however, has caused subtle but significant changes in parishioners perceptions of the church community and their place within it.
The experiences and perceptions of Latino and non-Latino Catholics in Pittsburgh suggest that sociological forces other than cultural retention or assimilation may be possible within parishes comprised of multiple ethnic groups. I demonstrate that the current, predominating model of cultural retention is not an accurate description of the internal social dynamics and cultural transformation that is occurring at St. Regis; the cultural retention model cannot accommodate parishioners inclusion and expansion of diverse national holidays, the creative reimagining of traditions and festival Masses, or a pervasive sense of confusion surrounding formerly stable community linguistic identifiers and stereotypes. I offer the concept of localized transculturation as an alternative lens through which to view these cultural negotiations, and I support this argument by highlighting the St. Regis communitys interwoven use of three languages, the incorporation of culturally different foods at community meals, and similar descriptions of community and a sense of belonging articulated by wide cross-sections of the congregation. This paper concludes by addressing possible theoretical and methodological challenges to these conclusions.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PITT/oai:PITTETD:etd-12032010-142053 |
| Date | 27 January 2011 |
| Creators | Givens, David L |
| Contributors | Dr. Alex Orbach, Dr. Clark Chilson, Dr. Paula Kane |
| Publisher | University of Pittsburgh |
| Source Sets | University of Pittsburgh |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.pitt.edu/ETD/available/etd-12032010-142053/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Pittsburgh or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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