Protestantism and State Formation in Postrevolutionary Oaxaca

By Kathleen M. McIntyre

In this fascinating book Kathleen M. McIntyre traces intra-village conflicts stemming from Protestant conversion in southern Mexico and successfully demonstrates that both Protestants and Catholics deployed cultural identity as self-defense in clashes over local power and authority. McIntyre’s study approaches religious competition through an examination of disputes over tequio (collective work projects) and cargo (civil-religious hierarchy) participation. By framing her study between the Mexican Revolution of 1910 and the Zapatista uprising of 1994, she demonstrates the ways Protestant conversion fueled regional and national discussions over the state’s conceptualization of indigenous citizenship and the parameters of local autonomy. The book’s timely scholarship is an important addition to the growing literature on transnational religious movements, gender, and indigenous identity in Latin America.

• Language: English
• Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
• Release date: May 15, 2019
• ISBN: 9780826360250

Kathleen M. McIntyre

Kathleen M. McIntyre is an assistant professor of gender and women’s studies at the University of Rhode Island. She lives in Providence, Rhode Island.

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Protestantism and State Formation in Postrevolutionary Oaxaca

Protestantism & State Formation in Postrevolutionary Oaxaca

KATHLEEN M. MCINTYRE

University of New Mexico Press • Albuquerque

© 2019 by the University of New Mexico Press

All rights reserved. Published 2019

Printed in the United States of America

First Paperback Edition, 2022

Paperback ISBN: 978-0-8263-6391-6

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: McIntyre, Kathleen M., 1978– author.

Title: Protestantism and state formation in postrevolutionary Oaxaca / Kathleen M. McIntyre.

Description: Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2019. | Includes bibliographical references and index. |

Identifiers: LCCN 2018034572 (print) | LCCN 2018054336 (e-book) | ISBN 9780826360250 (e-book) | ISBN 9780826360243 (printed case : alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: Oaxaca (Mexico: State)—History—20th century. | Protestant churches—Missions—Mexico—Oaxaca (State)—History. |Conversion—Christianity—Social aspects—Mexico—Oaxaca (State) |Conversion—Christianity—Political aspects—Mexico—Oaxaca (State) |Evangelicalism—Mexico—Oaxaca (State)

Classification: LCC F1321 (e-book) | LCC F1321 .M396 2019 (print) | DDC 972/.74—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018034572

Cover illustration courtesy of Flaticon

Cover designed by Catherine Leonardo

Interior designed by Felicia Cedillos

Composed in Minion Pro 10.25/14.25

For Erik

Contents

Acknowledgments

Abbreviations

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER ONE

As Fast as Men and Means Are Furnished

Protestant Missions during the Porfiriato

CHAPTER TWO

La sangre está clamando justicia

Constructing Martyrdom in Postrevolutionary Oaxaca

CHAPTER THREE

Contested Spaces

Local Conflicts, CONEDEF, and the Mexican State

CHAPTER FOUR

The Summer Institute of Linguistics in Oaxaca

CHAPTER FIVE

Liberation Theology, Indigenous Rights, and Nationalism

CHAPTER SIX

Here the People Rule

Customary Law and State Formation

CONCLUSION

Reimagining Communities

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Acknowledgments

I am indebted to a long list of individuals and institutions in the United States and Mexico for sponsoring me throughout this investigation of religious conflict in Oaxaca. Research grants from Clarion University’s College of Arts, Education, and Sciences Faculty Professional Development Fund allowed me to return to Mexico for additional research. My colleagues in history, Bob Frakes, Mike LaRue, and Martha Robinson supported my book manuscript from day one. Special thanks to Bob for guiding me through the book proposal process and to Martha for reading and commenting on several chapter drafts. Other colleagues and friends at Clarion University were also supportive of this study. Susan Prezzano encouraged me to present early selections of this book at CU’s Brown Bag Research Series. Discussing the anthropology of religion with Laurie Occhipinti resulted in fruitful methodological considerations. Tom Rourke strengthened my analysis of liberation theology. Miguel Olivas gave important input on Mexican political cartoons. Barry Sweet, Mike Di Giacomo, and Jeffrey Diamond also offered helpful feedback on the final manuscript. Kay Fineran Luthin proofread multiple chapter drafts. Librarians Ginger McGiffen and Melissa Pierce assisted with numerous interlibrary loan requests. Social Sciences administrative assistant Lana McClune organized my complex web of travel paperwork. Kevan Yenerall, Julia Aaron, Kathleen Welsch, Jamie Phillips, Jane Walsh, Cathie Petrissans, Todd Lavin, Phil Terman, and Herb Luthin made interdisciplinary collaboration enjoyable and rewarding at CU. At the University of Rhode Island, I thank my new colleagues, Rosaria Pisa, Donna Hughes, Jody Lisberger, and Lynne Derbyshire, for their support of my work. I also thank URI’s Center for the Humanities for supporting my book.

The University of New Mexico’s Latin American and Iberian Institute funded my dissertation research. I also received short-term grants from UNM’s History Graduate Student Association, the Feminist Research Institute, and the Graduate Professional Student Association. I studied the Mixtec language in Oaxaca through the Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowships Program. A 2010 dissertation completion fellowship from the American Association of University Women allowed me to dedicate a year to solely finishing the final draft. I also owe a great deal of gratitude to my dissertation chair at the University of New Mexico, Linda B. Hall, and committee members Cynthia Radding, Elizabeth Hutchison, Manuel García y Griego, and Les W. Field. Despite her retirement, Linda offered superb advice as I transitioned from dissertation to book. Cynthia has been a friend and generous colleague during research trips to Mexico City.

The Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social (CIESAS-Pacífico Sur) sponsored me as a visiting researcher while I completed the dissertation. Participating in the seminario interno gave me the opportunity to share my early work with an incredible cohort of scholars including Margarita Dalton, Sergio Navarrette, Salvador Sigüenza, Daniela Traffano, and Jutta Blauert, who all strengthened my approach to indigenous identity, the state, and religious conflict in important ways. In particular, I thank former CIESAS director Dr. Salomón Nahmad Sittón, who permitted me to explore his personal papers from his years as the director of Indigenous Education and as the director of the National Indigenist Institute. CIESAS librarian Ramiro Pablo Velasco helped make my research in Oaxaca go smoothly. Also at CIESAS, Raúl G. Alvarez Chávez accompanied me on several interviews and provided background on Mixtec Pentecostalism. Juan Julián Caballero helped me set up my initial research trips to the Summer Institute of Linguistics library in Mitla. Xicohténcatl Luna Ruiz was a loyal research partner during long days at the Centro Coordinador Indígenista in Tlaxiaco.

In Mexico City, archivists at the Archivo General de la Nación and Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México’s (UNAM) Hemeroteca were incredibly patient and helpful. I met Rubi Barocio through UNAM’s Coloquio Internacional Historia, Protestantismo e Identidad en las Américas in 2011. Rubi shared her family’s collection of La Luz Bautista with me and was my guide to historic Protestant churches in Mexico City. Many thanks to Fabiola Salguero at El Universal for assisting me in using images for this book. I am also very appreciative of Deyssy Jael de la Luz García and Abdías Pérez, who both gave me insight into the early role of the Comité Nacional Evangélico de Defensa in defending religious freedom in Mexico. Organizing a panel paper with Oswaldo Ramírez González afforded me new opportunities to expand my research of Methodist missionaries. In addition, long conversations with Father Enrique Marroquín in Guadalajara also helped me define this project and forge connections with scholars of religious conflict.

In Oaxaca City, Sergio Osorio Carrizosa assisted me with transcriptions and invited me to patron saint day fiestas in the Mixteca. Laura Olachea Magriñá edited transcription drafts. Catechist Nacho Franco helped set up my research at the archdiocesan archive and was a great hiking partner. Guadalupe García Hernández took me out for truchas and long talks in the Sierra Norte. Edmundo López López tracked down missing newspaper articles, accompanied me around the Panteón General, and introduced me to historians Francisco José Ruiz Cervantes and Javier Sánchez Pereyra. It was through Edmundo’s suggestions that I delved into the history of Protestantism and education in Oaxaca.

The staff at Biblioteca Francisco de Burgoa, Fundación Bustamante, the Archivo General del Poder Ejecutivo del Estado de Oaxaca, Hemeroteca Pública de Oaxaca, and the Archivo del Poder Judicial de Oaxaca provided expert archival services and a pleasant atmosphere for research. I particularly thank Penélope Orozco Sánchez and David Karminski Katz at Burgoa for helping me utilize rare books in their collection. I am also indebted to Grupo Noticias for permission to use images. Edgar López at the Departamento de Asuntos Religiosos took an early interest in this project and helped me figure out the logistics of my research. At the Welte Institute for Oaxacan Studies, the late librarian Gudrun Dohrmann located sources for me and set up meetings with local scholars. I also thank Ramona Pérez for her enthusiasm for my work while I was a student in her San Diego State University Mixtec summer language program. Summer Institute of Linguistics administrator Stephen Butler offered a welcoming environment and full use of the organization’s library in Mitla. Pastor Saúl Velazco Cervantes of the Iglesia Nacional Presbiteriana de San Pablo helped me locate countless documents on his congregation’s early history.

I am greatly appreciative of the municipal officials in Santiago Yosondúa and San Jerónimo Tlacochahuaya who hosted me and to the families there who invited me to church services. The late Elvira Cruz García represents the heart of this book. Elvira opened up her Tlacochahuayan home to me many times to learn about her family’s Baptist history. Her daughter, Abigail García Hernández, also shared family photographs with me. I wish I could sit down for another atole with Elvira.

Growing up in New York’s mid-Hudson Valley gave me an early interest in transnational Oaxacan history. In many ways, the roots of this book stem from visiting Poughkeepsie migrant friends in San Agustín Yatareni and La Ciénega de Zimatlán and observing firsthand the new questions Protestant growth brings to fiestas patronales or local civic events. This book also owes its foundation to the mentoring I received at Vassar College from Leslie S. Offutt. She continues to champion my research ideas with good questions and thoughtful suggestions.

In the broader historical profession, colleagues have profoundly shaped this book. Participating on panels with Jason Dormady and David Burden led to new ways to conceptualize my work. Bill Beezley helped me come up with the book’s organization over a Oaxacan desayuno. Benjamin Smith offered tips on researching in Oaxaca City. Todd Hartch’s early aid opened doors for me in Oaxaca. I also appreciate Deborah Baldwin’s and Christy Thornton’s helpful comments on recent conference papers. I’m also very appreciative of Gender and History for allowing me to use parts of an earlier article in Chapter Two of this manuscript.

I would like to thank staff at the Presbyterian Historical Society and the University of Texas’s Benson Latin American Collection Library. I also owe a great deal of thanks to Clark Whitehorn, executive editor of the University of New Mexico Press, whose enthusiasm guided this project from the beginning. UNM Press acquisitions coordinator Sonia Dickey did an amazing job in preparing the manuscript for copyediting and keeping me on schedule. I also thank the anonymous reviewers who strengthened this book in significant ways.

Friends from my Albuquerque graduate student days continue to root for me during the ups and downs of historical research. Thank you to Joe Lenti, Brandon Morgan, Colin Snider, Sue Taylor, Meg Frisbee, Erin Cole, Blair Woodard, Brandi Townsend, Lucy Grinnell, Leah Sneider, Hilda Gutiérrez, Siobhán McLoughlin, Marcial Martínez, Wendy Cervantes, Julian Dodson, Will Veeder, Yann Kerevel, María José Bosanko García, Brian Stauffer, Chad Black, Nydia Martínez, and Bill Convery. Additional thanks to Joe, Brandon, and Colin for reading chapter drafts and to MJ for checking my translations. Finally, I am grateful for Andy Albertson’s editing advice.

My family provided incredible support throughout this project. I especially thank my parents, Bill and Cassie McIntyre, for nurturing my academic career even as they probably wondered why I didn’t write about Ireland. My siblings and their families bring me joy and happiness: William J. McIntyre, OFM; Kevin, Clare, Ryan, Griffin, Declan, and Maeve McIntyre; Siobhán, Mike, Patrick, Anne, Maggie, Luke and Nora Bubel; and Sean, Megan, Ciara and Aine McIntyre. Queens cousins Maura Ryan and Siobhán Murphy provided me with places to stay and fun nights between research trips and conferences. In-laws Ray and Linda Loomis, Daryl Loomis, and Kris and Carlie DiOrio, continuously encourage my work.

Most of all, I thank my husband Erik Loomis for his support along each stage of this project. I could not have finished this manuscript without his constant encouragement and patience. Sharing with him my love for Oaxaca has been truly amazing. Te amo siempre.

Abbreviations

INTRODUCTION

ON AUGUST 16, 1923, Presbyterian Lawrence Van Slyke wrote to his mission board outlining his desire to evangelize indigenous peoples in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca. Originally from western New York, Van Slyke intended to set up a missionary base in San Baltasar Yatzachi, a Zapotec community high in the Sierra Norte Mountains and a three-day mule ride from the Presbyterian church in Oaxaca City. Making the case for the new mission, he drew connections between indigenous evangelization and contemporary modernization projects in Mexico.

The Indian is worth the best we have…. There is a special interest in an effort to win to the Protestant religion the same race that produced Benito Juárez, the great Liberal of Mexico…. [Indians] will hold back the entire state until they are evangelized and educated, so that in reality, work among the Indians is the foundation work in this state.¹

Some sixty years later, on January 29, 1982, Zapotec mayor Efraín Cruz Orozco submitted a petition to state officials explaining why he refused approval of the construction of a Protestant church. Cruz Orozco represented Santiago Choápam, a municipality in the Papaloapan region of Oaxaca, just above the Sierra Norte. The leader’s argument hinged on the authority of collective rights over individual rights. The Protestant sects, he noted, brought divisions and conflicts; converts did not contribute to cooperative work assignments or serve positions in the civil-religious governance hierarchy. Fearful of divisions and the weakening of Zapotec communalism, he concluded: We have a careful agreement in this town that there is no other religion than the one that’s already here.²

Although separated by several decades, these examples touch upon a deep historical ambiguity shaping the Mexican government’s relationship with Native communities in modern Mexico: collective versus individual rights. In the 1860s, president and Oaxaca native Benito Juárez broke up indigenous collective landholdings, expecting that the policy would integrate Native peoples into a market economy. In contrast, 1990s indigenous rights proponents made the case that ejidal (communally owned) lands were cultural rights. As Mayor Cruz Orozco’s objection to Protestantism implies, religious diversity contributed to the ongoing debate over rights and tested the relationship between Native communities and the Mexican government. His case highlights some of the complexities surrounding Protestant conversion in Oaxaca.

Indigenous municipal leaders framed their opposition to Protestantism around the premise that it violated the social norms at the heart of their communities’ identity, leading to violence and divisions. The relationship between identity and tradition profoundly influenced how Catholics viewed Protestant expansion. Protestantism did not just challenge Catholic theologies; it also rejected traditional rituals and social organization embedded in the usos y costumbres (ways and customs) governance system. Individuals converting to Protestant faiths often challenged customary law that privileges the collective rights of the community.³ Rule by customary governance intersects with rights of indigenous communities to control community resources and political organization.

This book contributes new insights into the complex relationship between popular worship, ethnic identity, and the state in Mexico. In particular, it examines the terms and processes by which indigenous identity is constructed vis-à-vis religious conflict.⁴ My work conceptualizes indigenous identity as constantly changing in response to historical processes rather than as a fixed category. Protestant conversion in Native communities ultimately fueled broad discussions of indigenous rights and autonomy. By autonomy, I mean authority over ejidal landholdings, the opportunity to make political decisions via customary law, and a degree of control over natural resources in their communities. As Deborah Yashar puts it, indigenous rights movements often argue that their communities represent an autonomous sphere of political rights, jurisdiction, and autonomy.⁵ Thus, a Zapotec community like Choápam could argue that their practice of customary governance trumped federal law.

The impact of Protestant conversion challenged notions of indigenous identity, leading to contentious debates at the local and national levels. This book presents case studies of regional religious conflicts and oral histories uncovering patterns of community self-defense through appeal to a form of traditional indigenous identity that included syncretic Catholicism. Protestantism questioned collective identity in indigenous villages, leading to competing conceptualizations of tradition, identity, and political power.

This book is also a study about state formation in modern Mexico. A central concern is the examination of how indigenous communities, Protestant organizations, and the state negotiated religious conflicts. Framed by the 1910 Mexican Revolution and the 1994 Zapatista Revolution—uprisings with differing conceptualizations of indigenous peoples’ role in modern Mexico—an examination of Protestantism yields important findings on the impact conversion had on social organization and identities in indigenous communities. Focusing on Native communities of Oaxaca offers a case study that enhances the larger picture of Protestant growth in Latin America. Given Oaxaca’s peripheral status and geographic distance from the center of power in Mexico City, local indigenous communities had a long history of setting their own parameters for legal, spiritual, and cultural practices. The cases examined herein test whether political power resided locally in Native communities or with the state.

The Mexican Revolution called for the incorporation of Mexico’s indigenous peoples into the fabric of the nation. The postrevolutionary government’s cabinet members, often educated at Protestant schools, believed that strict adherence to Catholicism was holding Mexico back. To that end, the Mexican state enforced the anticlerical components of the 1917 Constitution: regulations of public worship, restrictions on church land ownership and building inventories, quotas on domestic and especially foreign priests, and the removal of the church and its clergy from the political scene.⁶

While many of these provisions affected ministers from diverse denominations, Protestant missionary organizations were adept at dovetailing state agendas with their religious outreach programs.⁷ Protestant missionary work could support Spanish language training and market competition into traditionally isolated communities that identified more with their village than the nation. With its large monolingual indigenous population and high poverty rate, Oaxaca became a priority for the newly formed Ministry of Public Education as well as for Protestant missionary movements anxious to work in Mexico following the Revolution.⁸

This book traces the historical interactions between North American missionaries, indigenous communities, government officials, Protestant churches, and the Catholic Church hierarchy from the postrevolutionary period to the 1994 Zapatista uprising. My study focuses mainly on municipal (county) conflicts in Oaxaca’s Central Valleys, the Mixteca Alta, the Sierra Norte, and the Cañada.⁹ These regions possess substantial Protestant populations, exhibit high rates of both internal migration within Mexico and external migration to the United States, and are home to large concentrations of monolingual indigenous language speakers. These are also regions with sustained periods of conflict between Catholics and Protestants, some lasting over fifty years. How converts negotiated their new religious practices with syncretic customs and communal obligations is key to this story.

Home to over ninety-six million Catholics, Mexico has the second-largest Catholic population in the world. Yet, as in much of Latin America, Protestantism has been growing in the last few decades. Prior to the Mexican Revolution (1910–1920), only 1 percent of Mexicans identified as Protestant. Currently, Mexico is about 10 percent Protestant—less than Guatemala or Honduras (both 41 percent), Nicaragua (40 percent), or Brazil (26 percent)—but the rate has expanded rapidly in recent decades.¹⁰ In Mexico, Protestant growth is most visible in the heavily indigenous southern states. Campeche, Chiapas, Oaxaca, Quintana Roo, Tabasco, and Veracruz all have Protestant populations ranging from 12 to 20 percent.¹¹ While Oaxaca is at the lower end of this spectrum (about 13 percent), it has the fastest growth rate: between 1970 and 2000, Protestantism increased by 531 percent.¹² The 2010 census documented 502,013 Oaxacan Protestants (comprising individuals over the age of five) out of a total state population of about 3.8 million.¹³

Protestantism is a complex and contested term in Latin America.¹⁴ In fact, it is more common to hear evangélico (evangelical) used to refer to all Christian, non-Catholic denominations. Furthermore, believers often use the terms cristiano (Christian), evangélico, and hermano (brother) interchangeably, emphasizing their shared Christ-centered identities and close relationship to each other.¹⁵ Early religious conflict cases in this study generally involve mainline (historic) denominations that arrived in indigenous Mexico in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Historic/mainline Protestantism includes those churches emerging from the Protestant Reformation in Europe—Lutherans, Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists, and Anglicans. Neo-Protestant groups are denominations formed primarily in the twentieth century, such as Pentecostalism.

Figure 1. Map of the Eight Regions of Oaxaca. Source: Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Oaxaca_regions_and_districts.svg.

The Mexican census—conducted each decade—often changes the parameters of what constitutes Protestant. Prior to 2000, for example, the Mexican census lumped Mormons, Adventists, and Jehovah’s Witnesses into the category of Protestantism. Yet by the 2010 census, Adventists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Mormons represented nonevangelical, Bible-based religions. Opponents of these newer Protestant and alternative Christian denominations pejoratively call them sectas: minority religious groups that are divisive and removed from the community.¹⁶ At present, Pentecostals and alternative Christians (Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons) are the fastest growing denominations in Mexico.¹⁷ This rapid growth has created tension in insular communities.

The impact of Protestant growth on traditional governance is at the core of religious conflicts in Oaxaca. Usos y costumbres is a critical component of village communal identity. At the basic level, usos y costumbres is a set of collective norms that Oaxacan indigenous communities rely on for self-government. For example, communities that follow usos y costumbres may elect local leaders by raising hands at an asamblea (open meeting), not through a private ballot process. They may also assign residents (usually men) to a series of positions that increase with responsibility based on age. These cargos (obligations) make up the cargo system, a civil-religious hierarchy organizing Native communities. Participation in the cargo system also means volunteering for tequio (collective work) projects.¹⁸

Protestant converts increasingly abstained from tequio and the cargo system altogether. These abstentions occurred because of Protestant discomfort with extrabiblical or pre-Christian religious traditions, the quema de dinero (waste of money) resulting from the fiesta system, and the general desire to distance themselves from Catholicism. The loss of labor and monetary donations toward patron saint day fiestas concerned Catholics who saw the new faiths as challenging not only religious practices but also the central function of community identity. Participation in a patron saint’s day mass and celebration, and working one’s way up the cargo ladder through service to the community, were no longer central to Protestant converts’ daily lives. Thus, the mechanism for earning prestige as a ciudadano de bien (good citizen) with rights to communal resources (lumber, ejidal land, water, etc.) changed dramatically. As this book will illustrate, conflicts between Protestants and local government often started over a convert’s refusal to fund fiestas or contribute labor to a community project.

State Formation and Religion

Cases of religious conflict offer important insights into the role of the Mexican state in Native communities.¹⁹ Religion can be a tool of the state when supporting its interests, but it can also work against the centralization of state power. The trajectory of twentieth-century Mexican state formation started with the 1917 Constitution. The state redefined itself as highly nationalistic, prolabor and anticlerical. Although most of those provisions were not fully implemented until the presidencies of Plutarco Elías Calles (1924–1928) and Lázaro Cárdenas (1934–1940), this document profoundly affected labor laws, land tenure regulations, foreign interests in the mining and petroleum industries, and church-state relations.²⁰ Postrevolutionary goals for Native communities included fluency in the Spanish language, the construction of public schools, limiting patron saint day fiesta celebrations, and integrating new agricultural practices and job training. Driven by the tenets of indigenismo (a political, intellectual, and social movement emphasizing outreach to indigenous peoples), postrevolutionary administrations celebrated Mexico’s rich indigenous heritage through an emphasis on cultural folklore but ultimately pushed modernization and assimilation.²¹ Protestants anxious to evangelize indigenous Mexico shared all of these goals. Missionary Lawrence Van Slyke’s fear that Native Oaxacans would hold back the entire state was not too far off the mark from the state’s goal of defanaticization (reduction of Catholicism’s influence) of the indigenous population through literacy and apprenticeship training that would bring economic progress. ²²

To that end, the Mexican state, at various times, carefully cultivated its partnership with Protestant organizations. At first glance, an anticlerical state’s openness to Protestant missionary work might seem counterintuitive; however, Protestantism and state postrevolutionary goals went hand in hand. Missionaries went into indigenous communities and collaborated with state institutions including the Ministry of Public Education (Secretaría de Educación Pública, SEP), the National Indigenous Institute, and the Department of Health’s ongoing hygiene campaigns. As educational, agrarian, and health reform all made up the ongoing Revolutionary project, it is not surprising that President Cárdenas approved contracts with the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) starting in the 1930s.²³ When not translating the New Testament into every indigenous language in Mexico, SIL missionary-linguists assisted with literacy and public health programs in isolated zones.

However, this partnership between the state and Protestant missionary organizations faded in the late 1970s; aligning itself with North American churches contradicted the government’s newer emphasis on more participatory indigenismo trajectories.²⁴ While the 1920s through the 1950s were the heyday of official indigenismo, the 1960s and 1970s brought a shift in government policy: indigenous people should set the parameters of their relationship with the nation; there was no need to drop Native language, religious customs, or traditional governance practices to be a part of modern (read: mestizo) Mexico. Yet religious competition challenged this new type of indigenismo. By the 1990s, the Mexican state still vacillated between respecting indigenous religious practices while concomitantly protecting individual rights to religious freedom as laid out in Article 24 of the Mexican Constitution.

For their part, local municipal governments from the 1970s through the 1990s framed their resistance to Protestant incursion by asserting that Protestantism attacked indigenous cultural traditions. In response, the state government sent mediators out to rural communities or ordered both sides to report to government offices in Oaxaca City, where feuding parties signed an agreement to respect one another’s religious beliefs. However, an official paper from Oaxaca City or Mexico City had limited authority in their home communities because, as Mixe leaders in San Juan Juquila told a state mediator in 1983, Aquí manda el pueblo [Here the people rule].²⁵ This common refrain hurled at government officials represented local customary governance decisions that the state could not understand and in which the state had no business getting involved. By taking advantage of the absence of the state or using the reach of the state to their advantage, local leaders asserted that Protestantism was an attack on tradition and, furthermore, Protestantism was inherently antipatriotic. Protestant converts fought hard to gain permits for new churches and made some strides. Ultimately, however, when local communities made a collective decision to deny basic services to or expel converts, it was difficult for the state to provide adequate recourse to Protestants. In the end, rights to local autonomy won out over federal law, giving important insight into the negotiated authority of the state in religious conflicts.

Mexicanists have recently debated what historian Alan Knight refers to as the weight of the state in modern Mexico.²⁶ Captivated by the Institutional Revolutionary Party’s (Partido Revolucionario Institucional, PRI) populist roots of the 1930s and 1940s, scholars puzzled over how the party that was supposed to be the embodiment of the Mexican Revolution could evolve into one capable of brutal state violence against university student protesters in the Tlatelolco plaza in 1968.²⁷ In analyzing post-Tlatelolco Mexico, historians argued that the one-party state from its inception was incredibly powerful, unable or unwilling to concede to civil society’s demands. However, in the last two decades, historians have called for a re-examination of this narrow conceptualization of state formation.²⁸ The PRI was not monolithic or beyond reproach; the PRI constantly negotiated relationships with key constituent groups in modern Mexico. As the national government sought to exert control over Oaxaca, Native communities adeptly repackaged state mandates to meet local needs, hence creating alternate narratives and alternate political structures to support but often challenge PRI government policies.²⁹ For instance, state directives on constitutional rights filtered through local traditions in customary governance, thus blending state mandates with indigenous autonomy. This negotiation between national and local government exemplifies the contested nature of state policy in religious conflicts. The PRI was powerful, but it picked its battles carefully and understood that its top-down administrative policies might be integrated into local practices, especially in Oaxaca with its sixteen distinct indigenous groupings spread out over eight geographically isolating regions and a long history of resistance to state incursion.

Recent assessment of the midcentury PRI suggests that it acted as a dictablanda, or soft dictatorship. Historians Paul Gillingham and Benjamin Smith call for a closer look at the soft authoritarian nature of PRI rule between Cárdenas’s bold 1938 oil expropriation and the eve of the 1968