From Saint to Seeker: Teresa Urrea's Search for a Place of Her Own
On Monday, December 15, 1902, the Los Angeles Times proclaimed the feted arrival of the famed “Mystic Santa Teresa.” The paper regaled its readers with the circus like events that surrounded her arrival to the burgeoning West Coast metropolis: “Santa Teresa, the famous Mexican girl from the land of...
Main Author: | |
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Format: | Electronic Article |
Language: | English |
Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
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Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
Published: |
Cambridge Univ. Press
2006
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In: |
Church history
Year: 2006, Volume: 75, Issue: 3, Pages: 611-631 |
Online Access: |
Volltext (JSTOR) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
Parallel Edition: | Non-electronic
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Summary: | On Monday, December 15, 1902, the Los Angeles Times proclaimed the feted arrival of the famed “Mystic Santa Teresa.” The paper regaled its readers with the circus like events that surrounded her arrival to the burgeoning West Coast metropolis: “Santa Teresa, the famous Mexican girl from the land of the Yaqui, in Sonora, who is implicitly believed in by the majority of Mexicans of the Southwest as a healer, who exercises supernatural powers, has settled in Los Angeles permanently, her followers say, and is daily besieged by a pitiful throng of Mexican ‘enfermos.’” According to the Times, wagonloads of hopeful “invalids” made the pilgrimage to Teresa's cottage at the corner of Brooklyn and State in the “Sonoratown” area of East LA. Noting the “Stream of Mexicans Flowing to Her Cottage,” it listed the diverse range of desperate immigrants seeking her healing touch: “The halt, the blind, the inwardly diseased, paralytics, almost helpless and others with bodies ravaged by consumption, are helped to her doors each day by friends and relatives; and none go there without the belief that by the laying on of her magic hands they will be cured.” The reporter attributed all the excitement to the inexorable pull exerted by this “magnetic young woman from the South.” He blithely summarized, “Santa Teresa … has been the subject of many fantastic stories, based more or less on fact. In some ways her influence is really remarkable.” |
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ISSN: | 1755-2613 |
Contains: | Enthalten in: Church history
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Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1017/S0009640700098668 |