¡PRESENTE!

Through dozens of original documents ¡Presente! offers readers the story of Latino/Hispanic Catholicism from 1534 to the present. From the first mission encounters in the sixteenth century, to Cesar Chavez and the UFW, to the beginnings of mujerista theology in the 1980s, this collection offers a unique and indispensable look at the community that has become the largest ethnic component in the American Catholic Church today. ¡Presente! is a landmark and an indispensable text in our understanding of the Latino Catholic experience in the United States. Given the scarcity of publications on religion in Chicano and Latino Studies, ¡Presente! fills a major gap. --Mario T. Garcia Present-day Hispanic/Latino theology is but an outgrowth of the faithful religious practices of our peoples and their understandings of our God. This book presents ample documentation of all of this and the connections that exist between Hispanics/Latinas today and our foremothers and forefathers and as such it is an invaluable source for all of those who take our communities seriously. --Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz A much-needed and timely resource for any who are interested in the identities and history of Latino Catholics, or in the future of the Catholic Church in the United States. This collection of documents could serve well as a basic source book for a course on United States Catholic Latinos, or as a basic reader for any whose ministry involves the growing Latino community in the United States. --Justo L. Gonzalez With the publication of ¡Presente! the real depth and scope of the Hispanic/Latino presence in the United States is finally given the attention it rightly demands . . . Matovina and Poyos skillfully edited documentary history demonstrates that the older, deeper and now more vigorous dynamic of United States Catholicism is Spanish-speaking and Latin American. --Allan Figueroa Deck, SJ Timothy M. Matovina is Assistant Professor of Theology at Loyola Marymount University in L