Migrant Hearts and the Atlantic Return: Transnationalism and the Roman Catholic Church

242 Pages·2015·4.298 MB·English

by  Valentina Napolitano

Migrant Hearts &
the Atlantic Return
Transnationalism and
the Roman Catholic Church
Valentina Napolitano
M IG R A N T H E A RTS A N D
THE ATL ANTIC RET URN
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migr a nt he a rts a nd
the atl a ntic r et ur n
Transnationalism and the Roman Catholic Church
!
Valentina Napolitano
Fordham University Press
New York 2016
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Frontispiece: Virgen Dolorosa, Church of Santa Maria Della Luce.
Photo by the author.
Copyright © 2016 Fordham University Press
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available
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Printed in the United States of America
18 17 16 5 4 3 2 1
First edition
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to Kamau, il Guerriero Silenzioso
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Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: Catholic Humanitas 1
1. Migrant Terrains in Italy and Rome 000
2. The “Culture of Life” and Migrant Pedagogies 000
3. The Legionaries of Christ and the Passionate Machine 000
4. Migrant Hearts 000
5. The Virgin of Guadalupe: A Nexus of Aff ects 000
6. Enwalled: Translocality, Intimacies, and
Gendered Subjectivity 000
Epilogue 000
Notes 000
References 000
Index 000
vii
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Acknowledgments
Single authorship of a book is a myth. Many voices, people, ideas, and
stories percolate through writings. I cannot see this book only as farina del
mio sacco (lit., a sack of fl our, meaning “my own work”). Ideas are co-
created. They emerge in small and big talks, through shared silences, in
front of midmorning and late-night coff ees. They come through us, more
than they are by us.
I am indebted in this journey to all the formidable people I met in
Rome, in the Latin American mission and beyond, including Ada, Ana
Maria, Angel, Carlos(es) (one Costa Rican and one Ecuadorian), Cena,
Conchis, Elizabeth, Elvezio, Frida, Gloria, Griselda, Lina, Lorena, Maria
Rosa, Maricela, Marina, Marisol, Myriam, Rosa, Ricardo, Rudy, Ruth,
Sandra, Teo, Vincenzo, and many, many more whom I cannot mention
here. A deeply felt thank-you to the religious fathers Alfredo, Antonio,
Helkyn, Jesús, Jorge, José, Juan Carlos, Oscar, and Pancho, who let me
wander around the Latin American mission churches or met me at the
Colégio Mexicano in Monte Mario or talked about their life in Rome,
asking from time to time if the book had come out. I know it took much
more time than I hoped for, but thank you for your infi nite patience.
In Rome I am in debt to Mario Brunello, the brilliant librarian of
ARSI, the Jesuit archives, and to the wonderful new and old friends in
Rome: dear Isabel Cruz and Mattia Chiusano, who opened so many doors
with their warmth and friendship, and Jesús Colina, who, with his friend-
ship and great insights into the organization of the Catholic Church, gave
me many contacts and ideas to consider. Eloisa Stella and Angelo Marano,
with their gregariousness and witty discussions of Italian politics, kept me
sane in moments of fi eldwork impasse and made me realize that the
“return” I write about is also a personal one. I am grateful to my dear
uncle and aunt Luigi and Loredana Napolitano, who with their hospitality
and warmth made my life in Rome so much easier and familiar, and to my
cousins Daniele, Matteo, and Nicolò and their families, who engage more
ix
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x Acknowledgments
than I do with the Catholic faith. Thanks also to my joyful, warm sister,
Antonella, with witty and insightful Barry; Anna with my beloved father,
Picchio; and my wonderful nephew and niece, Noah and Sarah, who
remind me that being brought up in mixed-faith homes can seed wonders.
I am especially indebted to my colleagues in Toronto and elsewhere
who gave me so much food for thought and heartfelt intellectual blood to
make this project reach its conclusion: among them Joshua Barker, Janice
Boddy, Kevin Coleman, Simon Coleman, Jane Cowan, Hillary Cunning-
ham, Girish Daswani, Naisarge Dave, Andrew Gilbert, Paul Kingston,
Rebecca Kingston, Chris Krupa, Ashley Lebner, Tania Li, Nimrod Luz,
Maya Mayblin, Carlota McAlister, Ken Mills, Andrea Muehlebach, Ale-
jandro Paz, Xotchil Ruiz, Rosa Sarabia, Gavin Smith, Nurit Stadler,
Edward Swenson, and Donna Young. At the University of Toronto my
students, among them Norangie Carballo-Garcia, Alejandra Gonzalez
Jimenez, Mac Graham, Daniella Jofre, Peter Skrivanic, and Daniel Spots-
wood, have also been a great source of inspiration and helped refi ne my
thinking. In addition, I thank many other passionate students whom I
cannot name who have put up with my less-than-clear and often too-
experimental ideas. And I would have never completed this without the
administrative and intelligent support of Annette Chan and Berenice Vil-
lagomez. Thanks also to colleagues at the Università della Sapienza in
Rome, Alessandro Lupo and Pino Scirripa, who gracefully reminded me
of the depth of Italian anthropology. Thanks also to the late and visionary
Helen Tartar at Fordham University Press, who cannot see this book in
press; she is sorely missed. I also thank Thomas Lay, with whom I have
worked in the fi nal production of this book, as well as Teresa Jesionowski
and Justin Sully, who carefully edited the book manuscript (and were
patient in unraveling some of my Italian-sounding, too convoluted sen-
tences) and to the anonymous readers who have vastly improved this fi nal
version (if one could one ever say fi nal) of the book.
This research was supported by grants from the Social Science and
Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Connaught Foundation.
I would never have been able to fi nish this book without a productive year
spent in the Anthropology Department at the University of California,
Berkeley, in 2011–12. I thank in particular Mariane Ferme. I also thank
Stanley Brandes, Charles Briggs, Lawrence Cohen, Rosemary Joyce, Saba
Mahomood, and Donald Moore. A special thanks to Charles Hirschkind,
who, beyond generous ideas, kept me jolly, while writing, through won-
derful (and competitive!) tennis matches; Cristiana Giordano, who read
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