Dying for the Dawn

In a century stained by revolution, dictatorship, and neoliberal violence, ordinary men and women became extraordinary witnesses—dying so that others might live free.
From the bullet-riddled Cristero battlefields of Mexico to the bloodied streets where Óscar Romero fell, from Chico Mendes’s Amazonian stand to the unmarked graves of Chile’s forgotten priests and the deadly migrant trails of today’s Via Crucis—this collection rewrites the meaning of martyrdom for our time.
Edited by Marisol Lopez-Menendez, 'Dying for the Dawn' brings together leading scholars to reveal how martyrial stories are not relics of the past but living weapons: shaping politics, igniting social movements, redefining gender and memory, and challenging the very border between faith and resistance. Here you’ll meet worker-martyrs, children saints, environmental prophets, disappeared priests, and the “neo-liberal martyrs” dying at the hands of borders and cartels—figures whose deaths still fuel protests, pilgrimages, and demands for justice across Latin America and its diaspora.
Blending riveting history, sharp sociology, and unflinching cultural analysis, this is the book that finally connects the dots between ancient sacrifice and today’s struggles for human rights, migration justice, and democratic dignity.
Perfect for readers of liberation theology, Latin American history, religious studies, and anyone who believes that courage can outlast bullets.

List of Figures and Tables
Introduction
Marisol Lopez-Menendez
Universidad Iberoamericana-Mexico City, Instituto
Nacional de Antropologia e Historia-DEH, Mexico
Chapter 1 The new Kingdom: Modern Martyrdom and Martyrial Narrative Patterns in Latin America
Marisol Lopez-Menendez
Universidad Iberoamericana-Mexico City, Instituto
Nacional de Antropologia e Historia-DEH, Mexico
Chapter 2 Politics and Religion in Latin America: Martyrdoms and Religious Modernities
Fortunato Mallimaci
Universidad de Buenos Aires/ CONICET, Argentina
Chapter 3 Postmodern Martyrs: Structural Violence and Subalternity in Mesoamerica
Oscar Arturo Castro Soto
Universidad Iberoamericana-Mexico City, Mexico
Chapter 4 The Century of the Martyrs: Controversial Blesseds and Forgotten Saints
Amilcar Carpio Perez
Universidad Pedagogica Nacional, Mexico
Iliana Moreno Téllez
Instituto Ibero/Escuela Nacional de Antropologia e Historia, Mexico
Chapter 5 Cristero Revival: Veneration of Mexico’s Cristero Saints in the United States, 1926-Present
Julia Young
The Catholic University of America, USA
Chapter 6 When the Sex of the Martyr Matters: Leonor Sanchez, Worker Culture, Catholic Activism, and State Responses in Orizaba, Veracruz, Mexico, 1937
Kristina A. Boylan
State University of New York Polytechnic Institute, USA
Gregory Swedberg
Manhattanville University, USA
Chapter 7 Church Martyrs and Political Martyrs: Oscar Romero, Chico Mendes, and the Consecration of Death in Latin America
Andrew R. Murphy
University of Michigan, USA
Chapter 8 Santa Laura Montoya and the Good Citizen: Notions of Citizenship and Devotional Narratives in Colombia
Maria del Carmen Moreno Cardenas
Universidad del Mar, Mexico
Chapter 9 Gender, Silence and Martyrdom: The Case of Marcia Miranda Diaz in Chile
Paula Tesche Roa
Universidad del Biobio, Chile
Loreto Chandia Jara
Universidad de Chile, Chile
Gabriel Figueroa Montero
Universidad de Chile, Chile
Chapter 10 Memory of the Martyrs in Chile: Unacknowledged Church Martyrs During the Pinochet Regime
Boris Hau
Universidad Alberto Hurtado, Chile
Chapter 11 Latin American and Caribbean Migrants on the Via Crucis: A Neo-Liberal Martyrdom
Yves Solis
Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana-Unidad
Xochimilco, Instituto Ibero, Mexico
Eduardo Gusmao de Quadros
Pontifícia Universidade Catolica de Goias, Brazil
Contributors
Index

Marisol Lopez-Menendez is a sociologist of religion. She holds a PhD degree in Sociology from the New School for Social Research.
She is the author of the book ‘Miguel Pro: Martyrdom & Politics in Twentieth-century Mexico,’ among other publications, and has coordinated several collective books on religion in Mexico, memory, and social mobilization. She is currently carrying out the research project ‘Martyrdom, secularity and social mobilization in Mexico and Latin America 1950-1988.’
She has linked his interest in the development of civil society with the sociology of religion, using tools from traditional political sociology and social theory to study issues such as martyrdom and the social dimension of miracles in the Catholic Church, and other non- Catholic forms of martyrdom in their relationship with social mobilization and the consolidation of political institutions.

Modern martyrdom, martyrial narratives, socio-political mobilization, martyrdom, religion and politics, Latin America, multiple modernities, Catholicism, Pentecostalism, secularization, memory and justice, Argentina, religious pluralization, social martyrdom, modernity, ephemerality, martyr, beatification, canonization, Cristero War, Catholic martyrdom, Mexican migration, gender, resistance, Oscar Romero, Chico Mendes, sacred citizenship, cultural identities, devotional narratives, collective memory, gendered political violence, worker priests, Chile, political repression, dictatorship, transitional justice, human rights, migrant martyrdom, religious devotions, neoliberal violence