Page - 103 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 07/02

Using Latinx Theology’s Lo Cotidiano | 103www.jrfm.eu 2021, 7/2, 87–106 identified méttisage in the painter’s work, especially in El Velorio, as part of his attempt at developing an autochthonous Puerto Rican-ness, yet it must be interpreted in light of his elitism.37 Latinx scholars have teased out the- ological valences of mestizaje (and mulatez, a related concept) that would contrast with Oller’s views.38 For one, mestizaje construes mixed/hybrid race in a hopeful light, as a symbol of the Latinx Christian unity-in-difference or as the telos of Caribbean ethno-political unity and not as an expression of racial difference. By preferring difference, Oller just reinforces the colonial trope of Catholic institutional versus popular or European versus Caribbe- an – of us versus them. A decolonial El Velorio does not forget difference yet sees latinidad (“Latinx-ness”) in both its chaotic and harmonious complex meanings, perhaps best represented by the yellowish skin tone, the blue shoes, and the red-laced pillow of the dead child: the raison d’être of this celebration is not the different colors or the blending of color but being beyond indigenous, imported, and/or imposed skin color as a whole – the anti-colorist stance of mestize/mulate joy and suffering. Final Word on Humility, Self-reflexivity, and Transcendence These theological insights laid out above barely scratch the surface of the de- colonializing force of lo cotidiano on El Velorio. As a “particular actualization” of “human transcendence”, its meanings certainly are “unfathomable”.39 Yet decolonializing through lo cotidiano still opens up the painting’s agency and transcendence to the benefit of a Puerto Rican (and Latinx) knowledge base. Decolonializing makes the beholder uncomfortable with their history and identity, more so if Puerto Rican, but productively so. As pictorial God-talk, the painting remains, yet the beholder transcends. This is what I take to be Rahner’s meaning in the passage quoted above. Theology and art intersect in their transcending force, and the transcendent nature of the human con- nects with both through El Velorio’s theological and artistic agencies. This is one of the “so-whats” of decolonializing El Velorio: its ability to communally (that is, ecclesiologically), chaotically (that is, creatively), and racially/ethni- 37 Sullivan 2014, 1–7. 38 Nanko-Fernández 2015, 19–20. Mestizaje and mulatez are not easily translated; they both express the racial mixing/hybridity present in many Latinxs today. 39 Rahner 1982, 29.