An AAR Series
by Professor Daisy L. Machado

Gender and Pentecostalism in the Borderlands:
The Legacy of Early Latina Pentecostals for the 21st Century 
Los Angeles witnessed the birth of Pentecostalism in 1906. That event called a revival (others say “innovation”) happened on Azusa Street when a group of African Americans, Mexican-Americans, and Whites came together in worship for a “ten-day season of fasting and praying” beginning April 6, 1906 that culminated on Easter Sunday. This new movement, marked by speaking in tongues as a sign of baptism in the Holy Spirit, quickly spread around the country and eventually around the world.  This lecture will explore the role of early Puerto Rican Pentecostal women who took Pentecostalism with them when they migrated to New York City in the early decades of the 20th century. There in a new urban context they gave shape to a leadership style that was holistic focusing on both spirit and body. Because these women have remained invisible not only to histories written about Pentecostalism but within the movement itself, the lecture will focus on the important ministry of one key Pentecostal woman leader, Leoncia Rousseau, who created a never-before-seen outreach to drug addicts, ex-cons, prostitutes, and others who had been ignored by Pentecostal churches.