Sowing the Sacred

Sowing the Sacred traces the development of Mexican Pentecostalism in the context of migrant labor in California's industrial agriculture from the 1920s to the 1960s. During this time period, many believed Pentecostalism to be a distasteful new sect rife with cultish and fanatical tendencies; U.S. growers thought that Mexicans were not fit to be citizens and were a mere workforce; and industrial agriculture was celebrated for feeding American families, but its exploitation of workers was largely ignored. Contrary to the image of farmworkers as culturally vacuous, lacking creative genius, and mere bodies of labor in a vertiginous cycle of migrant labor in California's industrial agricultural system, this book argues that Pentecostal farmworkers from La Asamblea Apostólica de la Fe en Cristo Jesús carved out a robust socio-religious existence in these conditions and in doing so produced a vast record of cultural vibrancy. Sowing the Sacred queries what stories are portrayed about racialized Mexican workers and their religious life if we examine the photographs taken by the farmworkers themselves. The oral histories, photographs, and material from new archival collections tell an intimate story of sacred-space making in the form of mapping out churches, outdoors baptisms in grower-controlled waterways, building houses of worship in the fields, artistic creations of handmade goods and decor, and the role of historical memory in telling these stories.