Third-Worlding at Home

As a student of history of social formations located in what has come to be known as third world, I was intrigued by a recently published report recounting experiences of a score of American Christian pilgrims who only five years earlier had established home and mission deep in jungle. According to report, these new missionaries had reasoned that, if their efforts were to have authenticity, they would have to share daily hardships, gloom, and fear that permeate a blighted and primitive environment. knew it would not be easy to gain trust of local inhabitants. Indeed, many of natives suspected that pilgrims constituted vanguard of a new wave of colonization. Only recently, similar colonizers had occupied a nearby community from same language group, obliging locals to flee deeper into shadows of a jungle increasingly encroached upon by implacable, moving frontier of civilization. But pilgrims felt prepared for their task. One had been raised in Indonesia and thus was already acquainted with peace and joy that comes from living on while others had spent several months getting ready in Latin America, which often exhibited less extreme manifestations of third world life than they later encountered in mission territory. Interestingly, report tells us little about natives themselves and only positive reference comes in a pilgrim's exuberant reaction to a local wedding ceremony. really know how to celebrate life, he declares; They know how to celebrate a moment. The collective they; ritual otherness; present tense. Where can we find this imperial frontier? A French traveller recently described it as the only remaining primitive society (Baudrillard 1988:7). It is located in world's fifth largest Spanish-speaking nation; but it is also an important African country, and its Asian and Caribbean diasporas are increasingly significant as well. As you undoubtedly have guessed, it is here in US of A. The particular frontier described in report is a dilapidated, drug-infested, trash-strewn, grafitti-riddled, Puerto Rican barrio in urban jungle of North Philadelphia. And determined missionaries are non-denominational, charismatic Christian yuppies: young, white, highly-educated professionals, among them lawyers, physicians, an occupational therapist, a nurse, and last but not least, a theology student (Carvajal 1989). Most work in lucrative occupations outside barrio where they purchased or rent homes - but of course