Nepantla Spirituality

Chicana and Latina spiritualities are diverse, they are complex, they are old, and they are new. They embody and reflect the ambiguity of mestizaje, the chaos and richness of the borderlands, and the tension and creativity of nepantla, a Nahua term, meaning in the middle.

Nepantla is not syncretism in the traditional sense, but an example of transculturation, or a continuous encounter of two or more divergent worldviews. Once the tensions of nepantla are understood and confronted, and the native Self is recovered and continuously healed, nepantla becomes a psychological, spiritual, and political space that Chicanas/os and Latinas/os and other marginalized peoples transform as a place of meaning-making. Rather than limited by confusion or ambiguity, Chicanas/Latinas act as subjects or agents in deciding how diverse religious, cultural, and political forces can or cannot work together. They creatively maneuver the fissures, boundaries, and borders and consciously make choices about what aspects of diverse worldviews nurture the complexity of their spiritual and biological mestizaje, and what for them enables communication with spiritual forces. As Chicanas/Latinas reclaim their inherent power to decide for themselves what is of spiritual potency, they are led back to the divine feminine principle fundamental to an indigneous worldview; one silenced within patriarchal religions.

Nepantla spirituality does not exist merely to make us feel good. It is spirituality concerned with recovering ancestral ways rendered silent so that contemporary struggles for justice can be heard.

--From Nepantla Spirituality: Negotiating Multiple Identities, Faiths and Practices
by Lara Medina