The Political Spirituality of Cesar Chavez: Crossing Religious Borders

by Luis D. León

The Political Spirituality of Cesar Crossing Religious Borders maps and challenges many of the mythologies that surround the late iconic labor leader. Focusing on Chavez's own writings, León argues that La Causa can be fruitfully understood as a quasi-religious movement based on Chavez’s charismatic leadership, which he modeled after Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi. Chavez recognized that spiritual prophecy, or political spirituality, was the key to disrupting centuries-old dehumanizing narratives that conflated religion with race. Chavez’s body became emblematic for Chicano identity and enfleshed a living revolution. While there is much debate and truth-seeking around how he is remembered, through investigating the leader’s construction of his own public memory, the author probes the meaning of the discrepancies. By refocusing Chavez's life and beliefs into three broad movements―mythology, prophecy, and religion―León brings us a moral and spiritual agent to match the political leader.

Genres: Theology, Christianity, Politics

240 pages, Hardcover

First published November 6, 2014

Reviews

[Roger Green]

This book builds on Luis León's concept of religious poetics articulated in La Llorona's Children. Offering a case study of Cesar Chavez, León argues that Chavez's civic progressivism cannot be detached from his spiritual attitudes and that those two combined offer us a vision for spirituality in the 21st century. With excellent source work and deep historical work on race, class, gender, ethnicity, & religion this short book has a lot of power.

[graceofgod]

A fascinating book. It really shows how Chavez straddled the line of heterodoxy and orthodoxy, specifically with regards to his Catholicism.