History

As the Mexican American community multiplies and strengthens its position across the United States, its civic and religious celebrations expand in number and visibility. Through periodic observances, unequivocally Mexican cultural traditions have materialized in the secular and spiritual domains of American public spaces. This paper examines the commemoration of Holy Week in Omaha, Nebraska. Mexicans celebrate Holy Week, one of the most important events in the Catholic liturgy, in remarkable public spectacles. The reenactment of Christ's crucifixion galvanizes religious beliefs, emotions, and community solidarity through the participation of families, friends, religious associations, and community organizations. In Omaha, Guadalupe parish was established in 1919 and is the hub of a rapidly growing Hispanic population. As a community center, the parish provides extensive legal, educational, health, and counseling services. Since 1993, the Hispanic community of South Omaha has staged the religious drama of the Stations of the Cross on Good Friday. A devoted parishioner who oversees the Guadalupe youth center and choir selects the actors from the youth group. For 40 days, the participants meet twice a week for religious studies and rehearsals. The aim is to keep Mexican traditions alive by instilling in children and young adults appreciation for the culture and devotion to its rituals. (Contains 18 references.) (SV) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. A MEXICAN CELEBRATION*

As the Mexican American community multiplies and strengthens its position across the United States, its civic and religious celebrations expand in number and visibility. Through periodic observances, unequivocally Mexican cultural traditions have materialized in the secular and spiritual domains of American public spaces. This paper examines the commemoration of Holy Week in Omaha, Nebraska. Mexicans celebrate Holy Week, one of the most important events in the Catholic liturgy, in remarkable public spectacles. The reenactment of Christ's crucifixion galvanizes religious beliefs, emotions, and community solidarity through the participation of families, friends, religious associations, and community organizations. In Omaha, Guadalupe parish was established in 1919 and is the hub of a rapidly growing Hispanic population. As a community center, the parish provides extensive legal, educational, health, and counseling services. Since 1993, the Hispanic community of South Omaha has sta...

As the Mexican American community multiplies and strengthens its position across the United States, its civic and religious celebrations expand in number and visibility. Through periodic observances, unequivocally Mexican cultural traditions have materialized in the secular and spiritual domains of American public spaces. This paper examines the commemoration of Holy Week in Omaha, Nebraska. Mexicans celebrate Holy Week, one of the most important events in the Catholic liturgy, in remarkable public spectacles. The reenactment of Christ's crucifixion galvanizes religious beliefs, emotions, and community solidarity through the participation of families, friends, religious associations, and community organizations. In Omaha, Guadalupe parish was established in 1919 and is the hub of a rapidly growing Hispanic population. As a community center, the parish provides extensive legal, educational, health, and counseling services. Since 1993, the Hispanic community of South Omaha has sta...

From its origins at the end of the 19th century, the American sugar beet industry has been linked to Mexican immigrant labor. Moreover, the painstaking job of thinning, topping, and harvesting the large and heavy beets became an almost entirely Mexican labor specialty by the turn of the 20th century. Betabeleros, as the Mexican and Mexican-American laborers were and are known, sojourned north from the borderlands to Colorado, Nebraska, Kansas, South and North Dakota, Michigan, and Minnesota fields. In each of these states, the sugar beet industry willingly pursued immigrant labor to do the work while immigrant networks did much of the recruiting. At the same time, sugar beet production, in combination with railroad work, meat packing, construction, and other manual occupations, modified the demographic landscape of the Great Plains and Upper Midwest. The constant migratory movement eventually produced Mexican enclaves that dotted the region. The seasonal nature of sugar beet farming...

By the middle of the 1740s, the relationship between Jonathan Edwards and his congregation at Northampton had begun to slowly unravel. Prompted by Edwards's attempts to combat what he saw as a growing lack of spirituality, the debate became focused on the requirements for church membership and communion. Heretofore unnoticed in this debate was the role of Edwards's most popular work, the Life of Brainerd. Although the Life of Brainerd addressed broader questions such as Arminianism and enthusiasm, its central message was a real example of the normative Christian life. Edwards intended this to buttress his position on church membership but the impossible standard set forth in the Life of Brainerd instead contributed to the growing sentiment in the town for his dismissal.

Arthur Dent, the antihero of Douglas Adams's classic science-fiction satire, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, learns that the planet Earth was but part of a 10 million-year-old computer program designed to find the ultimate question about Life, the Universe, and Everything (the ultimate answer was forty-two, but no one knew the exact question). Arthur's discovery prompts him to declare to his source, the improbably named Slartibartfast, that this information explains a great deal. "All through my life," Arthur recalls, "I've had this strange unaccountable feeling that something was going on in the world, something big, even sinister, and no one would tell me what it was." Slartibartfast dismisses Arthur's insight, noting that such a feeling was "just perfecdy normal paranoia. Everyone in the Universe has that."1 Historians would beg to differ with Slartibartfast. Ever since Richard Hofstadter's seminal essay, "The Paranoid Style in American Politics," historians have been confident diat paranoia is found only on die Right in American society. In recent years, however, con

Reflecting broader trends in the study of colonial British America, historians have increasingly recognised the transatlantic nature of Protestant mission work. Both homeland and colonial participants shared a common worldview and goal when it came to the conversion of Native Americans. However, historians frequently present a bifurcated process: British-based mission boards and agencies provided funding and broad parameters, while colonial agents, ministers, and officials dictated the ways in which the missionaries themselves operated. In general, this is an accurate reflection of the reality of the Atlantic world, given the communication times and the normal inability of British sponsors to visit any work in progress. These limitations often led to a disconnect between goals laid out in Britain and practices on the ground in the colonies. An exception to this practice can be found in the early attempts of the Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge (SSPCK) to estab...

In keeping with all the colonies of British North America in the eighteenth century, New Jersey residents grappled with the poor in their midst. Since the early seventeenth century, people in Britain and in its colonies had accepted that even hard working people could slip into poverty through no fault of their own. This, in turn, meant that officials and townspeople recognized the need for some form of poor relief either through providing work options for the able poor or through direct relief for those unable to work. In eighteenth-century New Jersey, provincial poor laws and local town practices imitated, to some extent, common practices in Britain. However, these practices were modified by both the character of New Jersey settlement and by the broad requirements of provincial legislation which allowed for a significant degree of local interpretation. Thus, poor relief in New Jersey towns was carried out on a personal level and was influenced by both compassion and pragmatism. In recent years, the study of poverty has been one of the more fruitful areas of research for historians of early America. A steady flow of analyses of the poor have emerged providing understanding of the extent of poverty in the British colonies, the way in which it waxed and waned according to various local, regional, and transatlantic trends, and how individuals, communities, and colonies attempted to alleviate its impact on both their own lives and the lives of those around them. As the various colonies became more aware of the extent of poverty among their residents, efforts at poor relief developed a greater cohesion and legal structure. By the eighteenth century, most of the British colonies in North America made at least some attempt to follow legal and social precedents established in Great Britain, although these were commonly modified by local constraints and customs. 2 Eighteenth-century New Jersey was no exception when it came to the occurrence of poverty. Even in this province, which its governor described in 1748 as-the best country I have seen for

In fact Hephaistion's death hadprovedagreat misfortune to Alexander and I think he would havepreferred to have gonefirst himself rather than to experience it during his lifttime . ... (ArT. 7.16.8, Brunt) To say that Hephaistions death devastated the conqueror merely repeats a commonplace. But was Alexander's subsequent bereavement excessive, or-to use clinical terms-pathological?l Pervading popular opinion has been a guarded (or not-so-guarded) "yes." Nonethdess, I propose to argue that a number of actions heretofore seen as abnormal are in fact behaviors typical ofthe bereaved. The difference inAlexander's case was due to his wealth and his authority: he could both afford such gestures and have them enforced.

The Cult of Hephaestion jeanne reames W hen first I embarked, some twenty years ago, on a critical examination of the historical figure of Hephaestion Amyntoros and his place at the court of Alexander the Great, I had no idea that the subject of my study would turn out to have fans. Much to my astonishment since, I have fielded literally hundreds of enthusiastic letters from all over the globe, asking about Hephaestion. And I should add that this unexpected fascination predated Oliver Stone's Alexander, although the film certainly elevated interest. For a few weeks after the film was released, my educational website on Hephaestion reached over 900 visits (not mere hits) a day. 1 But. .. fans. Hephaestion has fans. We all knew that Alexander had fans-has had them since antiquity itself-yet Hephaestion would not have been high on my list of individuals likely to inspire a cult following. 2 The term "fan" is, of course, derived from "fanatic" and, depending on context, has either affectionate or negative connotations. For my purposes, a "fan" will be neutrally defined as someone enthusiastic about a topic as a hobby, rather than as a career, yet I think we all recognize that certain categories of fans enjoy greater social acceptability than others. 3 Not only is it human nature to develop such interests, but I would argue that it is healthy, too. Perhaps I should not have been so

An epigraphical survey (with digital mapping component) of Greece and Magna Graecia reveals a pattern as to where Hephais-based names appear, up through the second century BCE. Spelled with an /eta/, these names are almost exclusively Attic-Ionian, while Haphēs-based names, spelled with an alpha, are Doric-Aeolian, and much fewer in number. There is virtually no overlap, except at the Panhellenic site of Delphi, and in a few colonies around the Black Sea. Furthermore, cult for the god Hephaistos-long recognized as a non-Greek borrowing-was popular primarily in Attic-Ionian and "Pelasgian" regions, precisely the same areas where we find Hephais-root names. The only area where Haphēs-based names appear in any quantity, Boeotia, also had an important cult related to the god. Otherwise, Hephaistos was not a terribly important deity in Doric-Aeolian populations. This epigraphic (and religious) record calls into question the assumed Macedonian ethnicity of the king's best friend and alter-ego, Hephaistion. According to Tataki, Macedonian naming patterns followed distinctively non-Attic patterns, and cult for the god Hephaistos is absent in Macedonia (outside Samothrace). A recently published 4 th century curse tablet from Pydna could, however, provide a clue as to why a Macedonian Companion had such a uniquely Attic-Ionian name. If Hephaistion's ancestry was not, in fact, ethnically Macedonian, this may offer us an interesting insight into fluidity of Macedonian identity under the monarchy, and thereby, to ancient conceptualizations of ethnicity more broadly.

To say that Hephaistions death devastated the conqueror merely repeats a commonplace. But was Alexander's subsequent bereavement excessive, or-to use clinical terms-pathological?l Pervading popular opinion has been a guarded (or not-so-guarded) "yes." Nonethdess, I propose to argue that a number of actions heretofore seen as abnormal are in fact behaviors typical ofthe bereaved. The difference inAlexander's case was due to his wealth and his authority: he could both afford such gestures and have them enforced. The author wishes to acknowledge the special assistance ofseveral persons. E. N. Borza, P. B. Harvey, and E. N. Carney read this paper at an earlier stage, providing advice and an occasional muzzle on my tendency to over-explain. L Tride provided thoughtful com ments from his own experiences, and the final draft was read (graciously at the eleventh hoUt) by Karlyle Knox, old friend and veteran hospice counselor. As always, his points were pragmatic, insightful, and seasoned by his years of experience "in the trenches.» For the purposes of this study, "pathological" may be understood as "maladaptive."

An epigraphical survey (with digital mapping component) of Greece and Magna Graecia reveals a pattern as to where Hephais-based names appear, up through the second century BCE. Spelled with an /eta/, these names are almost exclusively Attic-Ionian, while Haphēs-based names, spelled with an alpha, are Doric-Aeolian, and much fewer in number. There is virtually no overlap, except at the Panhellenic site of Delphi, and in a few colonies around the Black Sea. Furthermore, cult for the god Hephaistos-long recognized as a non-Greek borrowing-was popular primarily in Attic-Ionian and "Pelasgian" regions, precisely the same areas where we find Hephais-root names. The only area where Haphēs-based names appear in any quantity, Boeotia, also had an important cult related to the god. Otherwise, Hephaistos was not a terribly important deity in Doric-Aeolian populations. This epigraphic (and religious) record calls into question the assumed Macedonian ethnicity of the king's best friend and alter-ego, Hephaistion. According to Tataki, Macedonian naming patterns followed distinctively non-Attic patterns, and cult for the god Hephaistos is absent in Macedonia (outside Samothrace). A recently published 4 th century curse tablet from Pydna could, however, provide a clue as to why a Macedonian Companion had such a uniquely Attic-Ionian name. If Hephaistion's ancestry was not, in fact, ethnically Macedonian, this may offer us an interesting insight into fluidity of Macedonian identity under the monarchy, and thereby, to ancient conceptualizations of ethnicity more broadly.