Bienvenidos! Again

I’m not gonna write too much today–for many reasons

1) all the good stuff about the Breaking Bad Finale has already been said–I will miss that show

2) I am new to this page and I guess I want to re-introduce myself in hopes of gaining new readers?

3) my primary job is as an academic–so writing is what I do all the time, and I admit to sometimes not having time to update this blog because…

4) I am an academic and grading and meetings are some of the more arduous tasks of this vocation

5) I’m glad to be here to demonstrate that there are indeed progressive Pentecostals–that we often have to find our voices outside of our churches and denominations, because those power structures are usually gerrymandered to reflect the “American values” of–let’s say 1951

6) I’m also a historian and there is probably nothing that infuriates me more than church folk who use/abuse/and misrepresent history for their own narrow ideologies–which is why I don’t read most Christian media–its too depressing

7) I am also a Latina–you don’t have many on these pages, which I try to rectify by asking my colleagues and friends to contribute here to broaden the conversation.  It still amazes me that people do believe there is diversity when there is no empirical evidence to that end? Oh well

8) As a progressive Pentecostal woman of color with an advanced degree, a long-standing deep relationship with the church of my upbringing, the Roman Catholic Church–I hope to share all kinds of voices here–progressive charismatics, Pentecostals, Latino/as of various religious persuasions–because…

9) As you may or may not no, there are not a lot of me…When I graduated grad school in 2001, there were about 25 Latinas with a PhD in history in the entire U.S.  So, if you are wondering where I have been  hiding—I have probably been trying to hold down my job, my family, and live a middle-class existence in the midst of tough economic times for anyone in this business who feels they are in that mid-career blues–but I digress, you don’t need to hear my complainting…I’ll end with this

10) I hope you enjoy my semi-regular postings/rants/musings–sometimes it will seem like a lecture–sorry, second nature, sometimes it will be irreverent, but I always hope to be thought-provoking….next time, some musings on the Latino/a church–and why there are not more of me even in “progressive” pages such as this