New Mexico's Moses: Reies López Tijerina and the Religious Origins of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement by Ramón Gutiérrez (review)

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• New Mexico's Moses: Reies López Tijerina and the Religious Origins of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement by Ramón Gutiérrez
• Maggie Elmore

New Mexico's Moses: Reies López Tijerina and the Religious Origins of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement. By Ramón Gutiérrez. ( Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2022. Pp. 556. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, index.)

Perhaps no Mexican American civil rights leader's legacy is more contested than that of New Mexico's Reies López Tijerina. A land rights activist, religious leader, indefatigable defender of the poor and disposed, and mastermind of an armed takeover of a federal courthouse, López Tijerina's story reveals complexities of the Chicano Movement. López Tijerina was simultaneously an activist and religious visionary. It is this intricate story Ramón Gutiérrez seeks to capture in his deeply researched biography.

Even those familiar with López Tijerina and the land rights movement in New Mexico will find something new in this volume. There is much to celebrate about this book. Gutiérrez shifts our attention from civil rights activism in California and Texas to civil rights activism in New Mexico. In [End Page 366] so doing, he makes land rights a central issue of the Chicano Movement. He likewise links López Tijerina's work as a faith leader and his efforts to establish a faith community to his political activism. Indeed, as Gutiérrez shows, these cannot be separated. Scholars and students of Southwestern history will find this an important intervention.

New Mexico's Moses puts religion at the center of the Mexican American civil rights movement. Like Rudy Busto in King Tiger: The Religious Vision of Reies López Tijerina (2005) and Lorena Oropeza in The King of Adobe: Reies López Tijerina (2019), Gutiérrez argues that Tijerina's evangelism informed his activism. Gutiérrez joins a small but growing number of scholars in Latinx history such as Felipe Hinojosa, Delia Fernández, Anne Martínez, Lloyd Barba, and Lilia Fernández who use religion as a lens for understanding Latinx community formation and social movements.

Gutiérrez is not the first historian to argue for a scholarly look beyond Catholicism to Pentecostalism to see the imprint of religion on the Mexican American civil rights movement. Daniel Ramírez and Lloyd Barba have also argued for increased attention on the relationship between the Chicano Movement and charismatic Christianity. Where Gutiérrez's work shines is in its deep dive into López Tijerina's religious visions.

Finally, it is impossible to talk about Reies López Tijerina without considering his crimes against his family members. There is a real moment of reckoning both in the academy and in religious institutions, as scholars and faith leaders come to terms with the impact of sexual abuse on survivors and community members. To be clear, we should remember López Tijerina for his activism, but we should not shy away from the difficult and necessary work of recovering survivors' stories and uncovering the traumatic history of sexual abuse. We do not need to rehash the intimate details of the crimes López Tijerina committed. But we do need to address the questions raised by his abuse and historians' struggle to grapple with that abuse. What, for example can we learn about the relationships between sex, gender, power, and religion in social movements or religious institutions? As historians, how do we work with survivors and write about individuals who were deeply flawed—who simultaneously preyed upon the vulnerable and amplified the voices of others long silenced?

Gutiérrez worked closely with López Tijerina on the translation of the preacher's writings, which are included as an appendix to the book. Scholars of religion will find this a valuable resource. Are López Tijerina's sermons a "blueprint for the origins of the Mexican American civil rights movement," as the back cover suggests? If not, they are certainly one point of origin, and one that warrants further consideration. [End Page 367]

Maggie Elmore Sam Houston State University Copyright © 2022 The Texas State Historical Association ...