Digital Commons Network^™

Marian Days: An Ethnographic Study Of A Vietnamese Religious Pilgrimage To The Heartland Of America, C. H. Patton

Electronic Theses & Dissertations

For the past fifteen years Vietnamese people have made a pilgrimage from all over the United States and many other countries to the annual Marian Days Celebration held each summer in Carthage, Missouri. The observance is held to promote devotion to Mary, mother of Jesus Christ. For three days these people engage in prayer, renew their faith in God, renew old friendships, establish new ones, and attempt to preserve their culture. This annual influx of people, with a culture foreign to the area, has grown in such magnitude that it is now over four times larger than the population of …