Pertenencia y solidaridad rurales: Una celebración guadalupana

Rural Midwest communities are important sites of social reproduction. In many communities the experiences of Latinx community members highlight the complexities of rural belonging. I examine how a Virgen de Guadalupe procession promotes ethnoreligious solidarity and challenges imaginations of the rural Midwest. I draw from ethnographic data including semi-structured interviews, participant observations, and direct observations to highlight how the celebration enacts solidarity and challenges stereotypes. I argue that this celebration illustrates the importance of bodily expressions of solidarity in rural spaces for Latinx people and immigrants—people who are integral to the lived reality of the Midwest—but challenges romanticized, idealized, and nostalgic imaginations of rural life.