The Influence Of Chicana/O Culture

Even though CHI-50 was intended to be an introduction to Chicana/o Culture and was not comprehensive, the major factors that best define this culture are values, norms, symbols, and communication forms. All these major factors were covered in depth, including the cultural productions such as the manifests in art, poetry, and music. In my opinion, we could have delve deeper and made more connections between the factors. As I learned more of Chicana/o Culture, I felt that religion took a major part in establishing and defining the Chicana/o Culture we know now. Religion was intimately tied with many of the major factors, since this is what most of the Chicanos grow up experiencing.
On average most young Chicanos who grow up in a Chicano community

Some people had home altars and images of the saints. They used their Catholic religion at the same time they used Indian herbs and prayer in medicine. Thoes who had chosen to attend church and fully live Catholic lives sought to make their religion more relevant to themselves by having music, prayers, and readings in Spanish. Throughout the United States, increasingly there are more Mexican American laypersons involved in the church. Mariachi masses are common. Also common and indicative of the religious commitments of some are the statues of the Virgin and Jesus exhibited in the yards and in the homes of many citizens. Many people have patron saints to whom they pray for assistance, good health, good jobs, racial justice and peace in the world. Home altars at which people light candles and pray to the saints for guidance, assistance, and deliverance are very much an Indian and a Spanish tradition. Religion enable individuals to make sense of their world. It guides them in times of