I was able to learn and gather information about the origins of Hispanic Adventism in the U.S while conducting research for our Interactive Journalism class at Southern Adventist University. The investigation led me to the first major volume ever written on the history of Hispanic Adventism in the North American Division, titled, “The Untold Story: 100 Years of Hispanic Adventism.”
The book was written by Manuel Vazquez in the year 2000 and published by Pacific Press Publications. I also found a study conducted by Juan Carlos Viera for Adventist.org in 2016.
Vazquez writes about the beginnings of the Hispanic church in the United States, stating:
“The Seventh-day Adventist work among the Hispanics in the U. S began in Sanchez, Arizona, in 1899, only 36 years after the Adventist Church was officially organized (1863). A bilingual Mexican Methodist pastor named Marcial Serna eventually became the first Hispanic Adventist pastor, raising up several Adventist congregations in the southwest region of the United States during his ministry” (15).
He also shares an anecdote about sister White, writing: “In 1913, Ellen White told Abel Sanchez, one of the first Hispanic Adventist members in the North American Division: ”It has been shown to me that the Spanish work will be placed at the vanguard and march at the head of the cause of God in the United States.”
This prophecy is literally being fulfilled today. From the 15 original members in the Spanish Church in Sanchez, Arizona, in 1899, the Hispanic membership in the North American Division has mushroomed to nearly 105,000 in 1999!” (15).
At the same time that the Hispanics were organizing in North America the church was fulfilling its commission to spread the Third Angel’s Message, found in Revelation 14.
Even before the launch of Serna’s ministry and White’s vision, Adventists were already evangelizing in Latin America.
Juan Carlos Viera in his study of Seventh-day Adventist education recounts that “Adventists arrived in South America by 1890. The first missionaries Elwin W. Snyder, Albert B. Stauffer, and Clair A. Nowling initiated a literature distribution program and began advocating for the development of the Adventist Gospel. Among the inhabitants an appeal to the Adventist message surfaced all around the continent.” (Seventh-Day Adventist Education.CIRCLE, 2016, circle.adventist.org/services/info/?topic=adventist_ed.)
As Hispanic Adventist converts continued to grow, the evangelistic work expanded to Florida, now the headquarters of the Inter-American Division, a sub-entity of the denomination’s General Conference that oversees the church’s work in Central America and the Caribbean. The division relocated from Havana, Cuba, to Miami, Florida, in April 1945.
Vazquez states: “While the change was aimed to take advantage of better communications and air transportation to all the Inter-American Division countries, it led to the beginnings of the Hispanic work in Florida” (308).
The Hispanic presence in Florida has become more pronounced in recent history. Vazquez shares that “between 1959 and 1962, over 215,000 Cubans fleeing the Castro regime found shelter in the United States. The second wave of immigration, which arrived in 1980 between April and September, brought more than 125,000 Cubans to the States. By the 1980s, 340,000 Cubans were living in South Florida in the Miami area. There were some Adventists among those leaving Cuba who considered the Spanish-speaking congregations in Miami to be a refuge in the new world.” (307).
The U.S Census.gov website shows that by March 1993 the Hispanic population in the U.S was 22.8 million, 8.9 percent of the total population. By 2018, the number, provided by the Pew Research Center, had grown to 60 million, showing the ten top metropolitan areas above the million in such places as Florida, California, Texas, New York and Illinois.
In their make-up, big Hispanic/Latino families can be very dynamic and diverse. These family members include “old country” elderly grandparents who do not speak English and who have not assimilated into the culture of the United States; bilingual, bicultural, educated, and professional middle-aged parents as well as young children who speak only English and are completely assimilated into the new community.
These dynamics and the diversity among the Hispanic diaspora in the United States contribute to the generational divide within the SDA church in North America.