Helping Others Help Themselves

Abstract

Luisa inherited her durable connection to Roman Catholicism from her parents. Even as she received her religious education, Luisa refused to submit uncritically to religious authority. Her first example of rebellion came in kindergarten. Victor and Amalia, themselves regulars at the 7:00 a.m. Mass, insisted that Luisa attend parochial school. Soon after she started at a Morelia school run by nuns, Luisa bristled against the arbitrary rules and dour environment. Rather than argue with the teachers, which she knew would provoke her parents’ anger, Luisa decided to sidestep them. One day when her mother came to pick her up from kindergarten, the teacher informed Doña Amalia that Luisa had not come to school that day. Alarmed, Amalia cried, “But I dropped her off here this morning!” The staff immediately began searching the premises and eventually found Luisa alone and content in the laundry shed. After her mother had left her in the morning, she went straight there and entertained herself all day by washing her stockings, hanging them to dry, and then taking them down to wash again.