One Class (6)
Lectionary, Year C, Epiphany 6
Christopher B. Harbin
Luke 6:17-26
Coming to North Carolina to work with a Spanish-speaking congregation, I ran into discussion of the correct term to use in regard to my parishioners. Folks wanted to know whether my congregants were Latinos or Hispanics. Neither term is quite adequate, however. Latino refers to someone from Latin America. That excludes people from Spain, Portugal, and the US. Most of the children and youth had never been to Latin America. Hispanic refers to one who speaks Spanish. For some of my congregants, Spanish was a second or third language. Brazil comprises half of Latin America, but Brazilians are not Hispanic. We want a word that minimizes the diversity of the population, but there is no such word in English. We are trying to lump people from an array of cultures and linguistic backgrounds as one class. They are one class only as long as we are content to consider them people, perhaps with ties to Spanish-speaking countries in Latin America. Beyond that, their identities are much more diverse that we want to believe. The are one class to the extent that we have considered them as ''other.''
The folks coming to see Jesus were not wealthy and powerful. They were not the elders sitting at the gates, before whom the people came to conduct business and make legal transactions. They were not the well-to-do. They were the down-and-out whose needs had been neglected, overlooked, or remained beyond the reach of polite society. They were the people who most deeply felt needs their communities could not or would not meet. They were the more desperate and vulnerable, along with those seeking the equivalent of the circus on tour. They came from all over, because they heard that this Jesus had begun healing and restoring people to meaningful life in ways that no one else could.
Tyre is one of the world's oldest cities, located in Lebanon and established around 2,000 BCE. It was a seaport, known ...
Lectionary, Year C, Epiphany 6
Christopher B. Harbin
Luke 6:17-26
Coming to North Carolina to work with a Spanish-speaking congregation, I ran into discussion of the correct term to use in regard to my parishioners. Folks wanted to know whether my congregants were Latinos or Hispanics. Neither term is quite adequate, however. Latino refers to someone from Latin America. That excludes people from Spain, Portugal, and the US. Most of the children and youth had never been to Latin America. Hispanic refers to one who speaks Spanish. For some of my congregants, Spanish was a second or third language. Brazil comprises half of Latin America, but Brazilians are not Hispanic. We want a word that minimizes the diversity of the population, but there is no such word in English. We are trying to lump people from an array of cultures and linguistic backgrounds as one class. They are one class only as long as we are content to consider them people, perhaps with ties to Spanish-speaking countries in Latin America. Beyond that, their identities are much more diverse that we want to believe. The are one class to the extent that we have considered them as ''other.''
The folks coming to see Jesus were not wealthy and powerful. They were not the elders sitting at the gates, before whom the people came to conduct business and make legal transactions. They were not the well-to-do. They were the down-and-out whose needs had been neglected, overlooked, or remained beyond the reach of polite society. They were the people who most deeply felt needs their communities could not or would not meet. They were the more desperate and vulnerable, along with those seeking the equivalent of the circus on tour. They came from all over, because they heard that this Jesus had begun healing and restoring people to meaningful life in ways that no one else could.
Tyre is one of the world's oldest cities, located in Lebanon and established around 2,000 BCE. It was a seaport, known ...
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