A human’s search for the meaning of life can’t be constrained by culture or tradition. Searchers will follow whatever path they need to take to whatever end it meets.
Bernardo Pichardo is a hard-working, honest mechanic. He seems to walk around with a warm glow. When a Sun reporter recently walked into his shop, he stopped working, pushed his glasses up his nose, and extended his hand for a shake.
“What’s happening boss?” he asked with a slight accent.
Twenty years ago, Pichardo was a Catholic immigrant from Mexico. Today, he’s part of a growing Hispanic presence in Jehovah’s Witnesses.
“When I came here, there was a variety of religions. I got surprised,” Pichardo said. “I mean, [by] how many churches, how many denominations.”
The religious community in Mexico was predominantly Catholic. Pichardo remembers that there was a small, scattered Evangelical presence, mostly considered to be a sect. Upon immigrating to America, he found himself in a place where multiple traditions existed within arm’s reach of each other. Where in Mexico a person might have had to walk a day or two to go to confession, that same person in America would be hard pressed to walk down to the corner 7-Eleven without passing three or four different churches.
“In Mexico, years ago, it was prohibited to have a Bible. So you couldn’t have a Bible,” he recalled. “And then, if you had a Bible and you read the Bible, the priest would condemn you.”
When Pichardo immigrated, he brought with him a curiosity aimed at scripture. It wasn’t long before a well-dressed stranger knocked on his door and asked if he wanted to learn about the Bible.
Pichardo began studying with the Jehovah’s Witnesses and soon became one of their members.
Back then, the Jehovah’s Witness congregation at the north end of Santa Maria was a mix of African American, Anglo, and Hispanic members. Today, there are four completely Hispanic congregations.
Like Pichardo, countless other Hispanic immigrants are seeking something, and they seem to increasingly be cutting ties to both Catholic and Protestant churches.
Edgar De La Peña is someone who found new meaning through his search. It began with childhood memories giving rise to questions, and then to the transformation of an entire religious community in Santa Maria.
“Looking back on my family … I began to wonder about my last name, why were there so many mixtures in my family,” De La Peña recalled in his calm, quiet voice.
He began examining all the things in his life that couldn’t be explained by a traditional Hispanic background. Tracing the line back through his great grandfather, he found that his family originally came from Portugal and Spain.
“I connected all the history together, and I realized that it’s possible that 500 years ago—more than 500 years ago—my ancestors arrived from Spain,” De La Peña said.
He traces his roots back to the Jews who were expelled from Spain around the time Columbus set out on his 1492 voyage.
But it wasn’t just a desire to understand a family name and history that brought him to where he is today.
“When I began to seek God and read the Bible, I realized there was more to it and realized I didn’t have peace within myself,” he said. “And the more I read and began to get into history, I realized Judaism is what I wanted to do.”
De La Peña began to study the Torah with his family. Other Hispanic families eventually joined them, until Edgar had his own minyan—a Jewish congregation—of 60 people. Still searching, the group has joined Temple Beth El in Santa Maria to officially convert under the guidance of Rabbi Daniel Mehlmen.
De La Peña’s story was newsworthy enough that it was featured in two prominent Jewish publications: TRIBE and The Jewish World News out of New York. And he isn’t alone in his religious transformation. In 2005, The New York Times ran a story about other Hispanic citizens exploring their family roots—and their resulting conversions.
According to a report based on the American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) of 2008, Hispanic Catholics in the United States dropped by a little more than 6 percent from 1990 to 2008. That statistic might not seem like much, but when compared to the number of Hispanics living in America, it amounts to about two million people—two million people who were once Catholic and are now seeking the answer to life’s questions elsewhere. That’s equal to the number of Muslims and
Buddhists living in America in 2008.
The report also revealed that the percentage of Hispanics identifying with any religious organization decreased as well. Over almost two decades, the number of Hispanics who said they “believed in nothing” jumped from 6.4 to 12.4 percent.
It’s a trend that could be leaking into the Hispanic culture from the greater American culture. As of 2008, 15 percent of Americans said they believed in nothing.
The Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture in Hartford, Conn., attributes this shift in religious affiliation to Hispanics intermarrying, incorporating English into their lives, and having more educational opportunities.
Only time will tell if the trend continues. Many religious affiliations are reaching out more to the Hispanic community than they have in the past. Even the Wiccan, Buddhist, and Islamic traditions are reporting increased numbers of Hispanics in their company.
A wise man once said, “Seek and ye shall find.” For some, the search has ended, though tomorrow is a new day, and as hard as a person seeks, he or she can never know what a new day will bring.
Contact Intern Michael McCone at intern@santamariasun.
This article appears in Sep 22-29, 2011.