I’m working on my article about Angelico Chavez’s short stories, and in doing my research on the historical issues he refers to, I found Juan Francisco Martínez’s book about the history of Protestant missions among the Spanish-speaking populations of the US Southwest, Sea la Luz. It turns out that by 1900, half the missions were located in Chavez’s home state of New Mexico, the setting of his stories.

But it occurred to me as I read it that I don’t recall Chavez mentioning Protestant missionaries in hiw stories. Which raises the question: why not? He’s well known for his historical work on New Mexico. And in the stories, he mentions the Anglo settlers, who were mostly Protestant, but doesn’t say much about their religion. Perhaps this was because Protestant missions in the area began to decline after 1920 (JFM 109), so that the religious issue was less pronounced by the time he was writing.

Or, perhaps he didn’t want to detract from his focus on New Mexico’s Spanish-Catholic (almost pre-Reformation) heritage. Martínez shows that the Protestants offered many services, especially education, that neither the US government nor the Catholic Church were providing. So it’s possible that any mention of Protestants could have showed some of the weaknesses of the Catholic tradition.

At the same time, not all of his Catholic priests are portrayed favorably. Certainly the priest in “The Lean Years” is condescending to his parishioners, and is said to be modelled after Bishop Lamy, who was himself condescending to Spanish speakers and not very-well liked by them in turn. Chavez is not afraid to make some religious figures look bad.

I don’t know Chavez’s attitude towards Protestantism, but I wonder if he didn’t know how to portray it in a way that was neither too negative nor too positive. Given the enmity between Protestants and Catholics that occurred both during Chavez’s lifetime and during the periods he writes about, he may have faced with the problem of how to avoid denigrating fellow Christians while still showing the superiority of Catholicism.

Interesting question….