Felicia, middle daughter of the del Pino family, exemplifies a blend of Catholicism and Santería. For Felicia, Catholic faith is largely a matter of externalities, which transfer easily into the realm of Santería: “Felicia remembers how when she was in grammar school the paraphernalia of faith had proved more intriguing than its overwrought lessons. After mass, long after the priest's words stopped echoing against the cement walls, she remained in church, inspecting the pews for forgotten veils or rosary beads. She collected prayer cards and missals engraved with gold initials and filled glass jars with holy water, which she later used to baptize Ilda Limón's chickens.” For Felicia, in other words, the abstract teachings of religious faith are relatively uninteresting, whereas its external rituals feel instinctively meaningful to her. Later in life, Felicia finds a spiritual home in the Santería practiced by her best friend Herminia’s family: “Felicia returned to our religion with great eagerness after her disappearance in 1978,” Herminia explains. “Felicia's mother discouraged her devotion to the gods. Celia had only vague notions about spiritual possession and animal sacrifice […] Celia revered El Líder and wanted Felicia to give herself entirely to the revolution, believing that this alone would save her daughter. But Felicia would not be dissuaded from the [gods]. She had a true vocation to the supernatural.” Herminia’s account suggests that Celia’s lifelong obsession with worldly, political matters makes Santería incomprehensible to her, and that it’s incompatible with Felicia’s “supernatural” bent, which finally finds its full expression in Santería.
Celia, matriarch of the del Pino family, is religiously ambivalent: she rejects Catholicism and tolerating aspects of traditional superstition, yet she’s distasteful of an enthusiastic embrace of Santería. For her, professed atheism and observance of cultural superstitions aren’t mutually exclusive. “Felicia knew that her mother […] had an instinctive distrust of the ecclesiastical. […] Although Celia was not a believer, she was wary of powers she didn’t understand. She locked her children in the house on December 4, the feast day of Changó, god of fire and lightning, and warned them that they'd be kidnapped and sacrificed to the black people's god if they wandered the streets alone.” Celia doesn’t trust conventional and hierarchical religion, but the beliefs she’s imbibed from her culturally diverse surroundings—like certain gods of Santería—still make a strong enough impression on her that she directs her actions accordingly, especially when she fears forces, like lightning, that she can’t control. Even superstition, though, is different from devoted adherence. When Felicia turns to Santería for healing, “Celia is uneasy about all these potions and spells. […] Celia fears that both good and evil may be borne in the same seed. Although Celia dabbles in Santería's harmless superstitions, she cannot bring herself to trust the clandestine rites of the African magic.” In other words, Santería might not be inherently evil, as more staunchly Catholic Cubans might claim, yet that doesn’t mean its secretive otherness doesn’t feel threatening to Celia.
Celia’s granddaughter Pilar blends religious views in yet another way: she grows up away from Cuba’s pluralistic context and considers herself to be an atheist, yet she feels herself pulled back toward traditional Cuban religion. Removed from her mother, Lourdes’s, and her grandmother Celia’s Cuban context, Pilar becomes irreligious, though not by a conscious decision. “My mother told me that Abuela Celia was an atheist before I even understood what the word meant. I liked the […] derision with which my mother pronounced it, and knew immediately it was what I wanted to become. I don't know exactly when I stopped believing in God. It wasn't as deliberate as deciding at age six to become an atheist, but more like an imperceptible sloughing of layers. One day I noticed there was no more skin to absently peel, just air where there'd been artifice.” Pilar, in other words, is drawn to atheism primarily because it lets her side with her grandmother against her mother, not because of a principled rejection of religion. Yet even Pilar isn’t impervious to the tug of religion. When she wanders into a botánica (a religious supply shop for Santería practitioners) in New York City, Pilar reflects, “I'm not religious but I get the feeling that it's the simplest rituals, the ones that are integrated with the earth and its seasons, that are the most profound. It makes more sense to me than the more abstract forms of worship.” The proprietor perceives that Pilar is “a daughter of Changó” and gives her a ritual to perform to determine her next steps in life. Pilar does so, and immediately afterward, she knows she must visit Cuba. This scene suggests that even when separated from her family’s homeland, Pilar has a mysterious pull toward religious traditions of the island, one that her insulated life in America has given her no opportunity to follow.
Ultimately, the novel’s blend of religious pluralism, magical realism (as in Celia’s husband, Jorge’s, haunting of the devoutly Catholic Lourdes), and even evidence of mental illness (Felicia, Celia, and even Pilar show hints of illness which seems to dispose them toward the supernatural all the more) flow together throughout the novel. García does not draw a strong distinction between them. In this way, she suggests that people find the spiritual meanings that make sense to them depending on the unique circumstances of their lives.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Religious Diversity ThemeTracker
Religious Diversity Quotes in Dreaming in Cuban
Celia is uneasy about all these potions and spells. Herminia is the daughter of a santería priest, and Celia fears that both good and evil may be borne in the same seed. Although Celia dabbles in santería’s harmless superstitions, she cannot bring herself to trust the clandestine rites of the African magic.
My mother told me that Abuela Celia was an atheist before I even understood what the word meant. I liked the sound of it, the derision with which my mother pronounced it, and knew immediately it was what I wanted to become. I don't know exactly when I stopped believing in God. It wasn't as deliberate as deciding at age six to become an atheist, but more like an imperceptible sloughing of layers. One day I noticed there was no more skin to absently peel, just air where there'd been artifice.
At night, Felicia attended our ceremonies. She didn't miss a single one. For her, they were a kind of poetry that connected her to larger worlds, worlds alive and infinite. […]
Felicia's mother discouraged her devotion to the gods. Celia had only vague notions about spiritual possession and animal sacrifice, and suspected that our rites had caused her daughter's mysterious disappearance. Celia revered El Líder and wanted Felicia to give herself entirely to the revolution, believing that this alone would save her daughter. But Felicia would not be dissuaded from the orishas. She had a true vocation to the supernatural.
Celia overturned the tureen with the sacred stones and crushed Felicia's seashells under the heels of her leather pumps. Suddenly, she removed her shoes and began stamping on the shells in her bare feet, slowly at first, then faster and faster in a mad flamenco, her arms thrown up in the air.
Then just as suddenly she stopped. She made no sound as she wept, as she bent to kiss Felicia's eyes, her forehead, her swollen, hairless skull. Celia lay with her torn, bleeding feet beside her daughter and held her, rocking and rocking her in the blue gypsy dusk until she died.
I envy this woman's passion, her determination to get what she knows is hers. I felt that way once, when I ran away to Miami. But I never made it to Cuba to see Abuela Celia. After that, I felt like my destiny was not my own, that men who had nothing to do with me had the power to rupture my dreams, to separate me from my grandmother.
