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Crossing Borders with the Santo Niño de Atocha. By Juan Javier Pescador. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2009. Pp. xxiv, 256. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $34.95 cloth.
Historian Juan Javier Pescador presents a well-researched account of an important religious icon of the Mexico-U.S. borderlands, the Santo Niño de Atocha. He traces its journey from a symbol of Spanish imperial power, to a symbol of resistance among northern Mexico's migrants, bandits, captives, prostitutes, sick, and other impoverished peoples, to a patron of safe border crossings in Mexico and the United States. The research is largely based on archival materials, including parish records, private letters, church inventories, property records, and official state documents. Also analyzed are impressive quantities of religious media.
Chapter 1 begins the story of the Santo Niño in sixteenth-century Spain, as a mother and child statue known as Our Lady of Atocha and the Holy Child. A symbol of Spanish military, political and economic power, worshiped by royals and wealthy elites, the image came to Mexico and was revered exclusively by Spaniards as a symbol of Spain's...