The Spiritual is Political: The Pilsen Via Crucis as a Path to Resistance

This chapters reveals the political nature of the annual Via Crucis, or Living Stations of the Cross, performed in the Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago by ethnic Mexicans and other Latines. The annual procession, first performed in 1977, brings communities together to share the burdens of their day-to-day suffering in racially fraught circumstances. The Via Crucis draws attention to drug use, gentrification, poverty, labor abuses, poor housing, and other social ills damaging the fabric of Mexican Chicago. The procession serves to remind gentrifiers, city, and church officials that Pilsen is still Mexican, and to remind Mexicans that they are not alone; they do not suffer alone. Jesus, and their fellow community members, are there in solidarity.