We talk to Daisy Vargas, whose current work traces the history of anti-Mexican and anti-Catholic bias in the U.S. She begins with the end of the Mexican-American War, which saw the absorption of a large swath of Mexico into the U.S., and with it, tens of thousands of mostly Catholic Mexicans. Their arrival exacerbated tensions between the dominant Protestant culture of the country and its new citizens, whose Catholicism was often stereotyped as darkly superstitious. Vargas holds that these misconceptions of Mexican Catholicism persist, as evidenced by the confiscation of religious objects in detention centers and racial profiling by law enforcement throughout the country.
Daisy Vargas, assistant professor of religious studies, University of Arizona
