Mazu, Meiguo Mazu, and Taiwanese/American Women: Transnational Goddess and Transnational Religiosity

• In Event: Affiliations, Networks, and Identities: Transnational Chinese Religions in the Modern Period

Abstract

This paper examines the intersection of local and transnational space and religiosity between Chinese/Taiwanese Women and the Tianhou/Mazu Empress of Heaven Cult. The role of women in Chinese religious practice, both in China and in the global Chinese diaspora, has been largely understudied. Instead, many have focused on the patriarchal, typically Confucian characteristics of Chinese society and, by extension, Chinese religious life and practice. True to form, the major religious figures—historic as well as contemporary—are male. True to form, Confucian beliefs and ethos do inform much of Chinese society and cultural life, but the masculine representation of it as a religious philosophy that dominates women is misguided when examined from the perspective of everyday religious practices. Veneration of female divinities—the Compassionate Bodhisattva Guanyin and the highest ranking Buddho-Daoist Empress of Heaven, Tianhou/Mazu—begs questions about the role of female divinities and the role of women in the practice, transmission, and development of Chinese religion. Chinese women today, especially those living in immigrant communities in America, are creating new spaces and redefining their role in ritual traditions and religious communities. This is most clearly evident in the goddess cult community of Tianhou/Mazu among first-generation Chinese/Taiwanese American women in San Francisco. I argue that the transnational networks and kin location are embedded in changing ritual traditions and Chinese/Taiwanese women’s agency and religiosity.

Author

• Jonathan H. X. Lee, San Francisco State University