Unwrapping History: Women and the Maturation of Mexican-American Pentecostal Churches in California

Agriculture in mid-twentieth century California is generally associated with images of the Dust Bowl migrants and the Great Depression, but often forgotten and erased (both historically and in scholarship) is that Mexicans comprised the highest number of agricultural laborers in the state. I ask what story is told about Mexican religious life if we examine the photographs taken by the farmworkers themselves. This paper shows how from 1950 to 1970 Mexican Pentecostals (Apostólicos) formed a robust network of U.S-Mexico borderlands churches in the agricultural fields of California and how that women took charge of financing the construction of churches as well as the decoration their sacred temples. Using traditional Mexican handmade arts, they made tamales to raise funds and knitted intricate tejidos (embroidered fabrics) to decorate their temples and create banners for youth, women, and men to display at their local churches and at regional district church events. Beyond funding the construction of temples, the sale of tamales generated funds for larger the denomination’s (Apostolic Assembly of Faith in Christ Jesus) foreign missionary efforts in Latin America. At a time when farmworkers appeared to be caught in a vicious cycle of the colonial labor system, Mexican Pentecostal women leveraged a creative genius to produce an artistic trademark for the churches. While men dominated ministerial roles of preaching and teaching, women ultimately were the producers of the denomination’s material history and culture (found in the photographs and autobiographical materials).