Cultural Memory from the Margins
Isabel Gonzalez breathes in religious tradition
Margarita Erazo (fourth from right). Photo: Courtesy of Margarita Erazo
In June of 2023, I took a summer course titled “Material Culture and Lived Religions in US Latinx Communities” with Dr. Angela Tarango, Professor of Religion at Trinity University as part of Hispanic Summer Program (a partner of the Hispanic Theological Initiative). The class centered around the concept of materiality and observed how diverse Christian traditions and cultures add meaning to material practices and objects by way of cultural context. For the final project, each student had to choose a material object utilized in their Christian tradition and present a research paper that dissects the historical and present significance of said object.
My paper, entitled “Divine Presence and Prejudice: The Symbolic Power of Oil in Puerto Rican Pentecostalism,” centered around the use of aceite in Pentecostalism, specifically in the Puerto Rican context. To add a personal lens to the concept of anointing, I asked my aunt Margarita “Titi Margó” Erazo, an 83-year-old retired pastor in Bayamón, Puerto Rico, to explain the role and function of aceite in the Church. This interview turned into a 30-minute discussion that expanded past the concept of oil alone and, instead, brought me into the cultural memory of Titi Margó that has shaped her faith and joy-filled perception of God and the ways in which she believes God has encountered the island of Puerto Rico throughout her life.
As seen in the video clip below, which I used for my final project, my aunt is a captivating storyteller. She was born during an era known in the United States, including Puerto, as the “silent generation” (people born between 1928 and 1945, preceding baby boomers)--but Titi Margó was far from silent! At a young age, she was noted by family members as being gifted with the cadence and personality of a leader. And the faith she inherited from her parents only fueled her conviction to use these gifts in the public realm, where she would preach on the radio station in Puerto Rico and travel internationally on mission trips.
Margarita Erazo (first from left). Photo: Courtesy of Margarita Erazo
Because of the way early Pentecostalism allowed for women to serve as pastors and leaders, Titi Margó was able to step into a role that aligned with the skills and gifts she naturally possessed. She dedicated her life to ministry, serving as an evangelist and pastor since her early thirties. Her drive to spread the Gospel overrode societal expectations for her to marry and bear children. Instead, she became a shepherd to many, continuing to share el evangelio with joy and valor every moment she could.
Through her storytelling and meditations, I was led into the world of memories that shape her faith and beliefs. These accounts add a personal touch to various historical events. In that moment, I became co-journer, taking in the highs and lows of the scandalous and awe-inspiring testimonies that circulated both during her adolescence in Puerto Rico and before. As she puts it, “el año ‘33,” or 1933, was the year Puerto Rico was shaken up by a movement from the Holy Spirit.
Although born in 1940, Titi Margó recounts it as if she had been there. The stories she recalls were passed down by leaders she describes as the mighty ministers and evangelists who encountered the movement firsthand. In order for her to retell this time with such fervor and passion, she had to believe that what she had heard from these leaders was true. And this truthfulness has less to do with the 100% accuracy of every detail and more to do with the true depiction of God’s love and desire to heal the sick and comfort the poor. The truth of these accounts lies in the tangible hope that listeners receive when encountering the same account, and this is the truth Titi Margó imparted to me.
As she recalls, during the 1930s, revivals were taking over the island, resulting in mass conversions and miraculous healings. Her description of the events evokes that of the “Puerto Rico para Cristo" campaigns led by Pentecostal evangelist Francisco Olazábal in 1934. Religion scholar Gastón Espinosa attributes these mass-healing campaigns to the boom of Pentecostalism in Puerto Rico1. Out of these healing crusades came provocative testimonies of healing, spiritual liberation, and conversion.
Beyond spiritual revival, this era was also marked by a surge in leprosy. Titi Margó remembers hearing about the number of folks in Puerto Rico who were plagued by the disease. She describes how these individuals would often circulate around beaches in order to soothe themselves with the seawater. Rogerio Padilla, for one, suffered from this disease to the extent that he lost fingers and parts of his ears. Plagued with a disease that had no accessible cure, Padilla was hopeless…until, one day, a preacher visited him and preached the Gospel. Upon hearing these words, Padilla was miraculously healed!
As she recalls it to me, my aunt re-lives the impact of this testimony as if she’s back in the position where the story was first told to her. She turns to this account as evidence of the God she serves. “¡Ese es el dios que sirvo, Isa!” she tells me. Her joy is transmitted to me, as I imagine this testimony for myself and am taken in by the story of Rogerio Padilla. The impact it had on me, the joy and inspiration it brought to me, opened my eyes to the larger impact that this story has had on believers like my aunt, who lived during the time when this story initially circulated. Even my mother, who was part of this conversation, also recalls hearing this story even though she herself lived after the events took place.
The emotion my aunt exudes and the faith infused throughout her story is evident of a larger function of cultural memory, and how it takes on new life through the recollection of each storyteller. My aunt, a woman of 83 years, centered her life on the ministry of storytelling. She turns to story as the mode by which faith and hope are transmitted to her listeners. In these stories live personal accounts, testimonies of other believers, and the overarching story of the Gospel.
1 Espinosa, Gastón. “Latino Pentecostal Healing in the North American Borderlands.” Global Pentecostal and Charismatic Healing. Oxford Academic, 1 May 2011, p. 142. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195393408.003.0007
Ruins of a leprocomio (leprosarium), a hospital for leprosy patients, completed in 1883, Islote de Cabras, Palo Seco, Toa Baja, Puerto Rico, 2012. Photo: Norma Arbelo Irizarry
“[Rogerio] Padilla was hopeless…until, one day, a preacher visited him and preached the Gospel.”
There is much to be said about the function that storytelling serves in matters of faith. In fact, religion itself can be perceived as one large story passed down through believers. The ways in which these stories evolve when told by particular storytellers, however, is worth exploring. How does the context and experience of, say, a woman in Puerto Rico, who dedicated her life to ministry and never married, add texture to the hope imparted by the Gospel? How do her unique experiences and the perspectives that have been shaped by her active resistance to societal parameters for Puerto Rican women reveal a new dimension to the God she joyfully advocates for?
Sitting across from Titi Margó during the interview, I realized that I was receiving more than a mere story. Rather, I was participating in the sacred impartation of a faith that has been shaped by specific, culture-wide, and intimately personal experiences of a devout woman of faith. My aunt is a woman who operated outside of societal expectations and presuppositions. I was re-encountering God through the ways in which God encountered Titi Margó. Stories not only ground religious faith but are the breath of it. Each new story adds texture and dimension to the overall depiction of God and of hope, especially those stories that emerge from the marginal perspectives that are often overlooked and underappreciated.
On the day I returned to the mainland United States, my aunt jokingly said to me, “Isa, no sé si estaré aquí el año que viene. Tal vez me vaya con el Señor, pero si todavía estoy aquí, te espero, y si estoy en el cielo, ¡te espero allí también!” It’s difficult to imagine this conversation being one of the last I have with my aunt. But one thing I know for certain is that, though her body may pass, her impact will truly live on. And the stories she shared with me will continue on in my own faith and understanding of the divine.
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Beyond quarantine: a history of leprosy in Puerto Rico, 1898-1930s
