Editing Chicano (section)

=== Spirituality ===
{{See also|Spiritual activism|Indigenous Knowledge}}[[File:Strength willpower and Love.jpg|left|thumb|256x256px|[[Chicana art]] has been cited as central to creating a new spirituality for Chicanos that rejects coloniality.<ref name="Pérez-2007">{{Cite book|last=Pérez|first=Laura E.|title=Chicana Art: The Politics of Spiritual and Aesthetic Altarities|publisher=Duke University Press|year=2007|isbn=9780822338680|pages=4–10}}</ref>]]
Chicano spirituality has been described as a process of engaging in a journey to unite one's [[consciousness]] for the purposes of cultural unity and [[social justice]]. It brings together many elements and is therefore hybrid in nature. Scholar Regina M Marchi states that Chicano spirituality "emphasizes elements of struggle, process, and politics, with the goal of creating a unity of consciousness to aid social development and political action".<ref>{{Cite book|last=Marchi|first=Regina M.|title=Day of the Dead in the USA: The Migration and Transformation of a Cultural Phenomenon|publisher=Rutgers University Press|year=2009|isbn=9780813548579|pages=41–42}}</ref> Lara Medina and Martha R. Gonzales explain that "reclaiming and reconstructing our spirituality based on non-Western epistemologies is central to our process of [[decolonization]], particularly in these most troubling times of incessant [[Eurocentrism|Eurocentric]], [[heteronormative]] [[patriarchy]], [[misogyny]], [[racial injustice]], global [[Capitalism|capitalist]] greed, and disastrous [[Global Climate Change|global climate change]]."<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Medina|first1=Lara|title=Voices from the Ancestors: Xicanx and Latinx Spiritual Expressions and Healing Practices|last2=Gonzales|first2=Martha R.|publisher=University of Arizona Press|year=2019|isbn=9780816539567|pages=5–6}}</ref> As a result, some scholars state that Chicano spirituality must involve a study of Indigenous Ways of Knowing (IWOK).<ref>{{Cite book|last=Medina|first=Lara|title=Religion in Today's World: Global Issues, Sociological Perspectives|publisher=Routledge|year=2013|isbn=9781317796640|editor-last=Wilcox|editor-first=Melissa M.|page=246|chapter=Nepantla Spirituality: Negotiating Multiple Religious Identities among U.S. Latinas}}</ref> The ''Circulo de Hombres'' group in [[San Diego, California]] spiritually heals Chicano, Latino, and Indigenous men "by exposing them to Indigenous-based frameworks, men of this cultural group heal and rehumanize themselves through Maya-Nahua Indigenous-based concepts and teachings", helping them process [[intergenerational trauma]] and [[dehumanization]] that has resulted from [[colonization]]. A study on the group reported that reconnecting with Indigenous worldviews was overwhelmingly successful in helping Chicano, Latino, and Indigenous men heal.<ref name="Caporale-2020">{{Cite thesis|last=Caporale|first=Juvenal|date=2020|title=The Circle, Indigeneity, and Healing: Rehumanizing Chicano, Mexican, and Indigenous Men|url=https://repository.arizona.edu/handle/10150/641709|type=PhD dissertation|publisher=University of Arizona|pages=9–10|hdl=10150/641709|archive-date=2020-11-30|access-date=2020-10-14|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201130111749/https://repository.arizona.edu/handle/10150/641709|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|last=Tello|first=Jerry|date=21 September 2016|title=Círculo de Hombres 2013|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbW_nRpx6q4| archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211103/ZbW_nRpx6q4| archive-date=2021-11-03 | url-status=live|access-date=14 October 2020|website=National Compadres Network}}{{cbignore}}</ref> As stated by Jesus Mendoza, "our bodies remember our indigenous roots and demand that we open our mind, hearts, and souls to our reality".<ref name="Mendoza-2018" />

Chicano [[spirituality]] is a way for Chicanos to listen, reclaim, and survive while disrupting [[coloniality]]. While historically [[Catholicism]] was the primary way for Chicanos to express their spirituality, this is changing rapidly. According to a Pew Research Center report in 2015, "the primary role of Catholicism as a conduit to spirituality has declined and some Chicanos have changed their affiliation to other Christian religions and many more have stopped attending church altogether." Increasingly, Chicanos are considering themselves spiritual rather than religious or part of an [[organized religion]]. A study on spirituality and Chicano men in 2020 found that many Chicanos indicated the benefits of spirituality through connecting with Indigenous spiritual beliefs and worldviews instead of Christian or Catholic organized religion in their lives.<ref name="Caporale-2020" /> Dr. Lara Medina defines spirituality as (1) Knowledge of oneself—one's gifts and one's challenges, (2) Co-creation or a relationship with communities (others), and (3) A relationship with sacred sources of life and death '[[Great Spirit|the Great Mystery]]' or [[Creator deity|Creator]]. Jesus Mendoza writes that, for Chicanos, "spirituality is our connection to the earth, our pre-Hispanic history, our ancestors, the mixture of pre-Hispanic religion with Christianity ... a return to a non-Western worldview that understands all life as sacred."<ref name="Mendoza-2018">{{Cite journal|last=Mendoza|first=Jesus|date=2018|title=Chicana/o Spirituality: An Expression of Identity|url=https://scholarworks.calstate.edu/concern/parent/1g05ff07j/file_sets/ht24wn04f|journal=California State University, Northridge|pages=1–115|via=California State University|archive-date=2020-10-17|access-date=2020-10-14|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201017163957/https://scholarworks.calstate.edu/concern/parent/1g05ff07j/file_sets/ht24wn04f|url-status=live}}</ref> In her writing on [[Gloria Anzaldua]]'s idea of ''[[spiritual activism]]'', [[AnaLouise Keating]] states that spirituality is distinct from organized religion and [[New Age]] thinking. Leela Fernandes defines spirituality as follows:{{blockquote|When I speak of spirituality, at the most basic level I am referring to an understanding of the self as encompassing body and mind, as well as spirit. I am also referring to a transcendent sense of interconnection that moves beyond the knowable, visible material world. This sense of interconnection has been described variously as divinity, the sacred, spirit, or simply the universe. My understanding is also grounded in a form of lived spirituality, which is directly accessible to all and which does not need to be mediated by religious experts, institutions or theological texts; this is what is often referred to as the mystical side of spirituality... Spirituality can be as much about practices of compassion, love, ethics, and truth defined in nonreligious terms as it can be related to the mystical reinterpretations of existing religious traditions.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Keating|first=AnaLouise|title=EntreMundos/AmongWorlds: New Perspectives on Gloria E. Anzaldúa|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan|year=2016|isbn=9781403977137|pages=252–253}}</ref>}}
[[File:Gloria Anzaldua.jpg|thumb|238x238px|[[Gloria Anzaldua|Gloria E. Anzaldúa]]'s concept of [[spiritual activism]] calls upon using spirituality to create [[social change]].<ref name="Keating-2008">{{Cite journal|last=Keating|first=AnaLouise|date=2008|title="I'm a Citizen of the Universe": Gloria Anzaldúa's Spiritual Activism as Catalyst for Social Change|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/20459180|journal=Feminist Studies|volume=34|issue=1/2|pages=53–54|jstor=20459180|archive-date=2022-11-22|access-date=2020-11-10|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221122124726/https://www.jstor.org/stable/20459180|url-status=live}}</ref>]]
[[David Carrasco]] states that [[Mesoamerican]] spiritual or religious beliefs have historically always been evolving in response to the conditions of the world around them: "These ritual and mythic traditions were not mere repetitions of ancient ways. New rituals and mythic stories were produced to respond to ecological, social, and economic changes and crises." This was represented through the art of the [[Olmecs]], [[Maya civilization|Maya]], and [[Mexica]]. European colonizers sought and worked to destroy Mesoamerican worldviews regarding spirituality and replace these with a Christian model. The colonizers used [[syncreticism]] in art and culture, exemplified through practices such as the idea presented in the [[Testerian]] Codices that "Jesus ate tortillas with his disciples at the last supper" or the creation of the [[Virgen de Guadalupe]] (mirroring the Christian Mary) in order to force Christianity into [[Mesoamerican cosmology]].<ref name="Mendoza-2018" />

Chicanos can create new spiritual traditions by recognizing this history or "by observing the past and creating a new reality". Gloria Anzaldua states that this can be achieved through [[Nepantla|nepantla spirituality]] or a space where, as stated by Jesus Mendoza, "all religious knowledge can coexist and create a new spirituality ... where no one is above the other ... a place where all is useful and none is rejected." Anzaldua and other scholars acknowledge that this is a difficult process that involves navigating many internal contradictions in order to find a path towards spiritual liberation. [[Cherrie Moraga]] calls for a deeper self-exploration of who Chicanos are in order to reach "a place of deeper inquiry into ourselves as a people ... possibly, we must turn our eyes away from racist America and take stock at the damages done to us. Possibly, the greatest risks yet to be taken are entre nosotros, where we write, paint, dance, and draw the wound for one another to build a stronger pueblo. The women artist seemed disposed to do this, their work often mediating the delicate area between cultural affirmation and criticism."<ref name="Mendoza-2018" /> Laura E. Pérez states in her study of Chicana art that "the artwork itself [is] altar-like, a site where the disembodied—divine, emotional, or social—[is] acknowledged, invoked, meditated upon, and released as a shared offering."<ref name="Pérez-2007" />