 > Portada > Lo Mágico Terrenal > Homenaje a Sarita Colonia
Artículos: < 1 2 3 4 >
Sarita Colonia: Popular Resistance in the everyday life of Transnational Migrants
Ernesto Vásquez
ev2035@columbia.edu
Análisis sobre la resistencia cultural y religiosa presente en el culto a Sarita Colonia.
Contrary to traditional approaches, rebellion and resistance take place in the context of daily battles and simple social acts in the daily life of local and international migrants. Social struggles exist everywhere, even in the least dramatic and least visible situations. In this sense, the expression of power includes tensions and complaints that may not change the social world, but they function as a kind of resistance. Resistance that is not merely a mode of adaptation or subjugation, but rather is a dynamic strategy that operates in the ordinary life.
During the 1930s, Lima , the capital of Peru , changed from being a small and predominantly Spanish city, to a city that held almost 30% of the total population of Peru , predominantly mestizos and people of indigenous ancestry. After the growth of internal migration, almost every ethnic group and culture was represented in the new megacity.
Sarita Colonia was a humble girl who represented this flow of migration to Lima . She was a mestiza woman employed as a servant in a middle class family. Her ordinary story became a popular myth after she was the victim of a rape. There are contradictory versions about this event and it is not totally clear if the rape actually occurred or not. However, whether or not she was an “innocent victim” is not important for the pilgrims, rather, it is precisely because of this ambiguity that she currently represents the most important popular religious icon in Peru . She would probably never be accepted by the official Catholic Church, and would be never canonized because the circumstances of her life raise suspicions about her “sexual decency”. She is the Mary Magdalene from the Catholic Church's point of view.
For more than three decades she was the saint for the marginal people: prostitutes, homosexuals, transvestites, and prisoners. It is complex to understand how and when Sarita Colonia became a saint not only for the marginal people but also her faith crossed social and economic boundaries. Sarita Colonia represents religious and cultural resistance not only in terms of race or social class, but also in terms of gender and sexual identities. Transvestites and prostitutes pray for her when they are going to be arrested by the police; a robber mentions her name and hopes not to be captured by the police; a middle class gay man prays to her for a partner; an HIV patient prays to her to be cured; and a grief-stricken student asks her assistance in passing a difficult exam without investing much effort, and a married man prays to her for discretion in his casual sexual encounters.
Although Sarita Colonia does not represent rebellion or changes in the social order, she represents resistance against the hegemonic models of mainstream Peruvian society. Through rituals and discourses, people create and recreate religion, bringing a popular saint closer to their own ordinary lives. Sarita was an ordinary person and she represented the ordinary people better than anyone. There is a special Sarita for each pilgrim as an alternative to official and rigid official religion. People adapt their morals and experiences to Sarita. She never judges the pilgrims, and she never asks for penitence. She always understands people's feelings because she is the saint for everybody and for every purpose, even the less spiritual ones. There are virtual communities available on the internet that emphasize the “versatility” of Sarita written in a popular and non sacred language. The most powerful message is “ los cholos también tenemos santa ” (the indigenous people also have our saint)
Sarita Colonia is not recognized by the Catholic Church, and she is not an important churches such as Saint Patrick's Cathedral in New York city (where two official Peruvian religious icons are represented), and though her pilgrims do not show their faith in official ceremonies, Sarita is fast replacing many official saints. Her cult is private and only once a year Sarita's pilgrims visit her grave in a public cemetery in Lima . Although this ritual is collective, it does not contain the traditional elements of rituals of the Catholic Church. Sarita's pilgrims share the secret of belonging to a non-official spiritual community, and their prayers constitute resistance in a hierarchical society.
A question that is raised in this context is if everyday resistance creates space for social change. Power is virtually a synonym of order; thus, if we denaturalize order, we must denaturalize power, especially if we take into account people's agency and actions that express resistance . Power does not mean that the autonomy and agency of the “subaltern” subject are made invisible. This kind of discourse of domination disempowers subjects and does not consider the human subjectivity that generates certain kinds of agency that become equated with power, freedom, and constraints. From this perspective, individuals are not passive actors that are shaped only by their culture, but rather they are active subjects with voices, experiences, resources and knowledge.
The story of Sarita Colonia condenses many factors of an unequal, stratified society. Power and resistance act in conjunction, and people negotiate their identities in different spaces and through different kinds of knowledge. Sarita is the most versatile icon in Peruvian religiosity and she allows people to engage in dialogue with the sacred world without losing their profane experiences and everyday needs. Sarita's pilgrims, as well as other indigenous or mestizo people, are in constant struggle and tension with hegemonic discourses, and these alternative knowledge and small rebellions are changing the face of a given religious monolithic order.
Notas One website for Peruvian migrants in the United States is available at http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~dolorier/sarita/sarita.html and pilgrims can choose their own version of Sarita: Sarita sana (Healthy Sarita), Sarita Choche (Sarita Buddy), Sarita Postmoderna (Postmodern Sarita), and Sarita Corazón (Love Sarita).
Dirks, NB (1993) “Ritual and Resistance: Subversion as a Social Fact”, in NB Dirks, E Geoff, and SB Ortner (eds.), Culture, Power and History. A reader in contemporary social theory , Princeton University Press. Princetton , New Jersey . Artículos: < 1 2 3 4 >
Investigación
Sarita Colonia, Santa Te Quiere El Pueblo
Ana María Quiroz
El origen y características del culto a Sarita Colonia.
Relato
Un Mediodía con Sarita
Gonzalo Portocarrero
Sentido relato de una visita al mausoleo de Sarita en el Cementerio Baquijano y Carrillo de El Callao
Exposición Fotográfica
Sarita para todo el mundo
Arturo Quispe
Exposición fotográfica del Mausoleo de Sarita Colonia ubicado en el Cementerio Baquíjano y Carrillo de El Callao |
