Abstract
This dissertation argues that entanglements with Protestantism shaped articulations of a Mexican American identity distinct to the United States. To do so, it integrates scholarship in literary studies, religious studies, and ethnic studies to uncover religion’s multifaceted role in Mexican American literary history, a relationship that has been largely considered either incidental at best or incompatible at worst. While important studies of Chicanx/Latinx literature acknowledge religion as a cultural marker, especially in the form of Catholic traditions mixed with Indigenous rituals, this dissertation centers faith itself—that is, the actual beliefs and their enactment through practices—as an identity-forming framework. Drawing from an archive that moves from the novels of María Amparo Ruiz de Burton in the late nineteenth century to the beginning of the Chicano Movement with Rudolfo Anaya, this dissertation shows how these texts are not only mediating questions of identity through religion, but they also offer a theology of Mexican American identity that does not settle for an uncritical syncretism, an assumption historically leveled at Latinx communities by Anglo-American Protestants. Rather, these texts present something beyond hybridity in the realm of religiosity and also more generally as a way to inhabit life in the United States as a Mexican American.
Committee Chair
Abram Van Engen
Committee Members
Chris Eng; Elaine Peña; Hester Blum; John Alba Cutler
Degree
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Author's Department
English & American Literature
Document Type
Dissertation
Date of Award
4-28-2026
Language
English (en)
DOI
https://doi.org/10.7936/5zh2-qg42
Recommended Citation
Flores, Sara, "Rereading Religion in Mexican American Literature (1872–1972)" (2026). Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations. 3760.
The definitive version is available at https://doi.org/10.7936/5zh2-qg42