Seite - 90 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Band 07/02

90 | Héctor M. Varela Rios www.jrfm.eu 2021, 7/2, 87–106 Latinx hermeneutical lens, is particularly relevant to Latinx identity and his- tory. On the one hand, Latinxs everywhere are subjugated by systemic rac- ism and all its consequences to varying degrees, experiencing, for example, less access to education and health care, lack of equal economic opportuni- ty and legal rights, and sustained violence due to their dark-skinned bodies and/or accented speech. To the quotidian question “how are you?”, most Puerto Rican Latinxs (although U.S. citizens by birth) would respond “en la lucha”, “in the struggle”.7 For those Latinxs thrown onto U.S. soil as non-cit- izens by the insidious push-and-pull forces of neoliberalism, this lucha is compounded exponentially – it becomes guerra. On the other hand, and ironically, lived-experience is also rife with hopes and dreams. In the United States, many Latinxs are able to carve a life in the intersection of oppression and celebration (e. g., of family separation and quinceañeras, the celebration of a girl’s 15th birthday) together with strong devotion to family and popular religion.8 This reality of lo cotidiano has become a locus theologicus for Latinx theologians: theological source, content, and context.9 In other words, lo cotidiano as theological category grounds, signifies, and generates God-talk that enables and justifies Latinxs’ God-given right to be fully human. By “decolonial” I mean the power of lo cotidiano to shift the epistemic frame of Latinxs. The term derives from the work of Aníbal Quijano, who invites us to think of coloniality as the epistemology inherited through settler colonial- ism and modernity in Latin America.10 Coloniality is invisible and pervasive, present even when the colonial situation has ended politically. For Quijano, coloniality sustains Latin American oppression by continuing to impose the epistemic framework of its oppressors. For instance, in Western Christian ec- term is helpful but not meant to reduce so many countries and cultures to a single ethnic- ity; indeed, many Latinxs do not agree with the term (mostly because of its gender neutral- ity) and use hyphenated demonyms. Earlier scholarship used “hispanic” and “latina/o” for the same group. In Spanish, many scholars have started to use latine as a gender-neutral term. “Latinx” is not meant to include Latin Americans who do not live in the United States, yet it is sometimes used interchangeably. 7 For a masterful elaboration of this theme, see Isasi-Díaz 2004, 52–61. Puerto Ricans are a good example of the precarious complexity of Latinx as a term. Puerto Ricans are U.S. citi- zens by birth, a right no other Latinx group has outside the United States. This fact makes them only tangentially Latinx for many, yet Puerto Rican culture is overwhelmingly Latinx. 8 To borrow Alexander Hamilton’s axiomatic statement in Lin Manuel Miranda’s eponymous musical: immigrants get the job done. 9 Nanko-Fernández 2015, 16. 10 Quijano/Ennis 2000.