So impactful that "there were more roads to Los Olmos than to some of the bigger towns and cities of this region. These roads were created by the people, by their many journeys to and from Don Pedrito’s healing practice situated there" (p 85). Harkens to the last books speaking on the presence of material resources shaping the border and the millenia of Indigenous people forging paths through the rough terrain of the SW that made it possible for colonizers to survive.

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Santa Teresa believed that science and faith were interconnected (similar to the Spiritista's views) so it appears that MX's real issues with her lay squarely in her advocacy and empowerment of marginalized, vulnerable "undesirable" populations. Not only because of her work in allegedly bringing them back to health, but because of her outward support of their rebellions in the face of injustice.

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Humorous that they downplayed Teresa's power, handwaved away saints as relics, but tirelessly worked to extinguish any connection to power. "Clearly, Mexican consuls in the United States regarded “the Mexican Joan of Arc” as a serious threat to the nation, and the Mexican government took precautions to ensure that the title of the anti-Díaz manifesto, “Señorita Teresa Urrea, Juana de Arco Mexicana,” was not printed on photographs of her, much less widely distributed" (48)

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It's fascinating that Diaz and his cientificos were looking towards a future of science, logic, progress, and modernization, but only saw authoritarianism as the model to achieve it. "Mexico was in an age of science and reason, and Sierra argued that the nation must not return to earlier, pre-scientific stages of development" (p 47). What do we risk losing when we centralize material, observable reality? Who gets impacted the worst? What parts of humanity starve?

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Opinion: Santa Teresa is sooo cool! "it is the beginning of an era in which women will be emancipated, for its heroine—without intention on her part—was a young woman; it is the awakening of the poor, the illiterate, the lepers and the socially segregate" (p 46). Imagine the hope that aggregated around Santa Teresa, so powerful that several people devoted themselves to the cause and rebelled in her name. She is now my icon.

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