Abstract
Lavina was born into a Roman Catholic family. At the age of eight, she moved to a slum in Mumbai with her parents and three sisters because they were poor. Since her father was an alcoholic, her mother worked part time as a domestic worker in three different houses to raise her children. She took them to church regularly, but on a few occasions when they went to meet the priest after Mass, he would simply look past them and continue talking to those who were rich and well dressed. Lavina mournfully expressed that the priests and others rarely came to visit them in the slums because they found it was dirty and there was no room to sit comfortably—since people were huddled together in small houses. After marriage, her sister chose to become a born-again Christian because she felt welcomed by the community and also had an experience of Jesus as her personal Savior. She kept encouraging Lavina to join the same group. Lavina initially refused but later chose to follow her sister when she began to experience a lot of problems in her married life and received no help and guidance from her local priest, who told her that she should see a counselor. She began to feel supported, encouraged, and enriched in her faith after joining this new community.
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Notes
The word caste relates to the Portuguese and Spanish term casta, meaning lineage or race, and originates from the Latin word castus, meaning pure or chaste. See J. H. Hutton, Caste in India: Its Nature, Functions and Origins (Bombay: Oxford University Press, 1961), 47.
Priya Deshingkar and John Farrington, Circular Migration and Multilocational Livelihood Strategies in Rural India (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 10. Even though it is shameful for women from certain castes to leave the village and go out to work, they see it as a way to escape from the rigid caste structures still prevalent in rural areas. While there are four predominant castes in India, each state has its own division of castes and tribes.
See Jan Nijman, “A Study of Space in Mumbai’s Slums,” Tijdschrift Voor Economische En Sociale Geografie 101, no. 1 (2010): 4–17, for an explanation of slums, especially in distinction to the Western understanding of slum. He quotes the definition of slums by the government of India as “housing that is unfit for human habitation or detrimental to safety, health and morals of the inhabitants.”
For Chung, “when women of faith and commitment who are breaking new ground recognize one another’s mission in their sisterhood, they overcome their fear of ostracism and annihilation. When they overcome their own fear by supporting one another they can make a bigger move. Their hearts extend to solidarity with all who are struggling to claim their dignity and power as people.” See Chung Hyun Kyung, Struggle to be the Sun Again: Introducing Asian Women’s Theology (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1990), 80.
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© 2016 Patricia Santos, RJM
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Santos, P. (2016). “Woman, Where Have You Come from and Where are You Going?”. In: Snyder, S., Ralston, J., Brazal, A.M. (eds) Church in an Age of Global Migration. Pathways for Ecumenical and Interreligious Dialogue. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137518125_10
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137518125_10
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