Abstract
¡Santo! Varieties of Latino/a Spirituality
Edwin David Aponte
Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2012. Xi + 193 pp. $28.00
In ¡Santo! Varieties of Latino/a Spirituality, Edwin Aponte sets out to give the reader a survey of the eclectic nature of what is termed “Latino spirituality.” Aponte’s book deliberately treats Latino spirituality as a wide-open subject, moving beyond the well-known histories of Latino Catholicism and Pentecostalism to probe deeper into issues of religious practice in order to display how Latino spirituality is fluid and ever-changing to meet the needs of the people. Thus, he shows how spirituality is better defined by practitioners than by scholars of religion, and in doing so, he reminds the reader that there is no such thing as one “true” Latino religious experience.
Aponte’s work refuses to place Latino spiritualities in a box, making this slim volume a gateway into many of the questions that scholars of Latino religions face: How does one define a Latino—or a Hispanic? What is Latino Spirituality? How is spirituality different from organized religion? How do some Latinos navigate complicated religious identities? Why should scholars even bother to study Latino spirituality? Aponte spends a great deal of time on these questions and pulls apart many of the main themes that are likely to be familiar to those who already study Latino religions, but may not be immediately evident to students outside of or new to the discipline. The issues surrounding the meaning of the term Hispanic vs. Latino provide a case in point. Aponte rightly notes that these names are really arbitrary designations that only account for culture or language (or colonization), and do not necessarily indicate race or nation of origin. In the United States, where minorities are often designated by race, this leaves Latinos with a puzzling conundrum. They are not a race, so what race do they supposedly belong to? While this may not seem to matter to outsiders, to Latinos it matters a great deal in terms of sorting out racial, cultural, and spiritual identity. Since they are often designated as an “other,” what kind of “other” are they?
Aponte’s book feels fresh in how it deals with the religious experiences of Latinos. The Latinos he talks about are Protestants, Catholics, Jews, Muslims, and believers who practice “alternative spiritualities” such as New Age, or, who incorporate Native traditions and religious practices alongside their other beliefs. Aponte goes from the “santo” (the holy) to rituals and sacred places to show that Latino religious practices take place anywhere and everywhere—in short, they mirror the complexity of general American religious practices as a whole and take that complexity to a new level.
Aponte closes by challenging the reader to think about “Spanglish” spirituality—in other words, a spirituality that is pieced together by the people to reflect their own lives as Latinos; it is often improvised, fluid, and constantly shifting. In challenging the reader to think carefully and analytically about “Spanglish” spirituality, he pushes scholars to look at Latino religions from a different perspective—one that privileges the lived religion of the people over the institutions that promote religions among the people. In this way, Aponte’s book reflects the move towards understanding lived religion within the field of American religious history, and it challenges scholars of Latino religions to keep this in mind as they continue to define and redefine Latino spirituality and religious practice.
Aponte’s book is slim, direct, and easy to read. In this way it would work as a fine introduction in a general Latino religions class—especially in one that would take the time to explore the different faiths that he mentions, but doesn’t have the time to develop. Aponte’s book functions as a good primer to some of the weighty issues that the study of Latino spirituality faces and pushes the boundaries of how we understand the Latino religious experience.