Excellent job, Christie. Solid observations and thorough descriptions. I especially like the table at the end.

20 points out of 20 possible.

Census and Social Structure Report: Mt. Carmel Cambodian Catholic Church Christina DAnna ANT 375: Ethnographic Methods and Techniques Dr. Needham October 20, 2007

In this paper I will discuss the different statuses found at Mt. Carmel Catholic Church in Long Beach and the roles that accompany those statuses. The field observation for this report was done over a period of two days: during a citizenship class on Saturday, September 29 and a mass ceremony on Sunday, September 30, 2007. There were many statuses that I observed during the mass and throughout previous field observations. I have divided these statuses into three categories: mass-related; church-independent; and church-related/non-mass statuses, each of which will be described in greater detail in terms of the roles and equipment with which they are associated. Also, many individuals simultaneously hold several of these statuses. I will explain why more than one individual can occupy a single status, and why individuals are able to have multiple statuses. I have also included a table that includes each status and their respective participants, status categories and brief role descriptions. My partner Mayra and I showed up to the church at 10 a.m. on Saturday, during a citizenship class held for elderly Cambodian women. Phansy Peang, the teacher, explained to us that a priest from Cambodia would give mass that Sunday. This was an extremely special occasion not only because Mt. Carmel could rarely afford to secure a priest for Sunday mass, but also because this particular priest was one of only five in all of Cambodia. Phansy told us that every member of the church, as well as members of other Catholic churches as far a field as San Diego would be attending the mass, so we decided to return on Sunday to complete our observations. It was during and after mass on Sunday that I observed the distinction between the three categories of mass-related, church-independent, and church-related/non-mass statuses.

3 The category of statuses with the greatest organization level is mass-related. Massrelated statuses exist for the purpose of conducting mass. Though these statuses may exist at any time, the participants are only actively involved in their roles during the actual mass. This category contains a total of seven statuses, including congregation member, priest, acolyte, sacristan, liturgy organizer, Eucharist minister, and lector. The most important of these statuses and the one that carries the most prestige is the priest. The priest at this mass was Father Peter, who came to Long Beach from his mission in French Canada. At his mission, he is known as Father Pierre. The role of the priest is to lead the congregation and say mass. He stands at a special place behind the altar in the front of the church, and wears a special type of clothing known as his vestments, including a long white robe called an alb, and a scarf with a cross embroidered at both ends that is draped over his shoulders. The scarf is long enough to reach the bottom of the priests alb when he is wearing it, and may be either plain white or colored. During mass, the priest conducts opening prayers, followed by the trinity, readings from the Old and New Testaments, gospel, sermon, communion and finally closing prayers. The priest has the sole authority to tell the congregation when to stand, sit or kneel, and when they are permitted to participate by singing or speaking. This mass was said in Khmer, which is what the congregation at Mt. Carmel generally prefers. When they have a priest who does not know the language, mass is held in English and the congregation answers the priest in Khmer. Though I could not understand the content of the mass, I recognized physical and auditory cues such as hand waving, standing or sitting and changes in the tone of voice from the priest and the people surrounding me that signaled my participation

4 In addition to the ecclesiastical significance to his special placement and his vestments, a priest has many other accompaniments associated with his status. He has a Bible at hand, which he reads during mass. He also sets out and blesses the objects associated with the Eucharist, which will be discussed in further detail later on. In addition, there are the other mass-related statuses that exist to assist him in conducting mass, The first of these statuses, acolyte, requires a minimum of two participants. At Mt. Carmel, the acolytes are Ron Doung, Eros Doung, and a teenage boy named Jeffrey who serves as acolyte occasionally. When he is not needed at Mt. Carmel, he serves at their sister parish, St. Anthonys. After mass, Ron was our principle informant. He sat down with us, answered our questions, and introduced us to many of the church members. He and Eros are cousins, and members of the family that has the longest involvement at Mt. Carmel. Ron is about eighteen years old and has been an altar server for ten years. This makes him a sort of teacher to Eros, who at approximately eight years old is very new at this role. Ron whispered and signaled to Eros as they performed each activity so that he could do it correctly. The role of acolytes, also known as altar boys or altar servers, is to assist the priest in setting up the Eucharist. During mass, the acolytes wear long-sleeved, loose fitting white robes over their normal clothing. They sit at the front of the church on either side of the altar, facing inwards towards the priest. There are a number of objects involved in preparing the Eucharist. They are as follows: a bowl for washing the priests hands; a hand towel for drying his hands; two cruets, the containers used to pour water and wine; a chalice, the gold cup used to hold the wine; the purificator, a small towel with a cross in

5 the middle of it used to wipe the chalice; the corporal, a large white cloth with a cross in the middle that is used as a place mat on the altar for these objects; the pall, a square of fiberglass with a cloth cover that is used as a lid for the chalice when the priest is not using it; a host, the large piece of unleavened bread that the priest breaks into pieces; a small plate to hold the host; and the communion breads. Another status that makes use of these objects is that of the Eucharist minister. The Eucharist ministers administer the Eucharist to the congregation. At Mt Carmel there are five Eucharist ministers: Mary, Joann, Mr. Sarin, Vesna, and Phansy. There were two Eucharist ministers serving at the time of my observation, one serving wine and the other bread. The Eucharist ministers do not accompany a special place during mass; they sit in the pews along with the rest of the congregation. When the priest signals that it is time to receive communion, they go to the altar and receive communion directly from the priest before picking up the challis of wine and the communion breads. They then stand at the front of the aisle to serve communion for the congregation. The final mass-related status that is occupied by more than one individual is that of the congregation members. During mass, congregation members sit in rows of wooden benches with an aisle in the middle called pews. They follow the priests vocal cues and signals, which tell them when and how to participate. This status is very important because without an audience, the message of the mass would be meaningless. At Mt. Carmel, there are approximately twelve regular congregation members who attend mass every Sunday, the majority of whom are Cambodian. On special occasions such as this Sunday the number of people attending mass may be up to forty, including family members and Cambodian Catholics from other churches, some as far

6 away as San Diego. On this day, Mayra and I had this status. Though we were principally observing, we were present for and participated in the mass. The final three mass-related statuses each have only one participant. They are the liturgy organizer, sacristan and lector. The liturgy organizer at Mt Carmel is Phansy Peang, a Cambodian woman. Her role is to prepare the readings from the New and Old Testaments for the priest to read during mass. She does not always fulfill this role, however, because some priests prefer to serve as their own liturgy organizers. The lector at Mt. Carmel is a Cambodian man named Mr. Sarin. His role is to present readings from the Old and New Testaments during mass. The role of the sacristan is to prepare the church for mass. The sacristan at Mt. Carmel is Bill, a middle aged Caucasian man. Bill gets to the church earlier than all the other congregation members in order to ser everything up. He turns on the lights, places the cloths that cover the altar, lights candles and incense, and does any general cleaning that is necessary. During mass Bill sits in a chair next to the side door of the church as opposed to in a pew, but participates in mass like all of the other congregation members. After mass is over, it is Bills job to clean up. This includes cleansing and putting away all of the objects associated with the Eucharist, blowing out candles, and picking up anything that was left behind in the pews. In addition to mass-related statuses, there are non-mass, church-related statuses, which fulfill a church-related role but do not involve participation during mass. These include teacher, student, parish director, deacon, church elders, head of religious education, and prayer leader.

7 The first two of these, student and teacher, are interdependent. There are two types of classes offered at Mt Carmel. The first type, the citizenship class, is offered to elderly Cambodian women who wish to be come American citizens. It is not required of students of this class to be church members. A number of volunteers teach the class five days a week. These include Phansy Peang and Vesna Loek, a twenty-four year old Cambodian man who has been involved at Mt. Carmel for eleven years. The second type of class offered is religious education. Joann, a heavily church-involved Caucasian woman who is also the head of religious education, teaches this class. As a teacher and the head of religious education, her role is to organize this class and educate the youngest members of the church about Catholicism. The statuses of parish director and church deacon are arguably the most important of all. Mary Blatz, a middle-aged Caucasian woman who is recognized as a leader at Mt. Carmel, occupies both of these statuses. They are so important because they keep the church running. Marys role as parish director involves leading the congregation. As deacon, her role involves doing everything the priest does except saying mass. Traditionally, deacons in the Catholic Church assist the pries in administrative and pastoral duties. Because Mt. Carmel does not have a permanent priest at the moment, all of these duties are left to Mary to fulfill. The final two church-related, non-mass statuses are those of the church elders and the prayer leaders. Church elders are members of the church who have been members for the longest periods of time, including many of Ron Doungs relatives, such as his parents, aunts, uncles and his grandmother. There is no role for church elders to fulfill, but all members recognize their status and it brings them respect. Robert Dell and Mary are the

8 prayer leaders. Mt. Carmel sometimes hosts prayer meetings on Sundays in place of mass and the prayer leaders role is to lead these meetings. The final category of statuses is church-independent. The statuses included in this category are kinship relations: mother, father, cousin, grandmother, etc. These statuses exist independently of the church social structure, but still are very important to the way members of the church relate to and interact with each other. As previously mentioned, many of the members of the church are members of Ron Doungs family. These include his parents, aunts and uncles, grandparents, cousins and siblings. While he was pointing his relatives out to Mayra and I, he used kinship terms instead of names. Every member of the church occupies a number of these statuses, and it is common for Cambodians who are not directly related to refer to one another using kinship terms. Many of the individuals I have discussed so far in this paper occupy a number of statuses. The number of church-related statuses an individual has can be an indicator of how they involved they are in the church. The individuals who occupy the most statuses are Mary, Joann and Phansy. Mary is a congregation member, parish director, deacon, Eucharist minister and prayer leader; Joann occupies the statuses of congregation member, teacher, head of religious education and Eucharist minister; and Phansy is a congregation member, teacher, liturgy organizer and Eucharist minister. Mary, Phansy and Joann all also occupy a number of church-independent kinship statuses. The most actively involved member of the church, Mary, occupies the greatest number of churchrelated statuses. It is possible for these individuals and others to occupy more than one status because each of the statuses I have described only takes up a small fraction of the

9 occupiers time and energy, leaving them free with abundant time and energy to occupy more statuses. In this paper I have discussed the multitude of statuses found at Mt. Carmel Catholic Church in Long Beach and the roles that accompany them. I divided the statuses into three categories: mass-related; church-independent; and church-related, non-mass statuses. I then listed and described each status and the roles accompanying them in detail. I explained why some of these statuses allow for or require more than one participant, and why many individuals are able to occupy more than one status. In doing the fieldwork for this report, I learned a great deal about the way people organize themselves in a church setting and in Cambodian culture. Catholic mass is a highly organized activity involving a lot of statuses that must work together to keep the mass running smoothly. There is a recognized leader, the priest; a number of people whose role is to assist the priest; and the congregation members who receive the priests message. I also observed a number of statuses that fulfilled church-related roles but existed outside of mass. Cambodian church members used mostly kinship terms to introduce one another, and it was clear that in this small congregation everyone knew each other very well. I enjoyed the opportunity to observe mass at Mt. Carmel, and found this special occasion interesting and fun to be a part of.

10

Status Congregation member Teacher

Participant(s) (all) Phansy (citizenship class), Vesna (citizenship class), Joann (religious education) Mary Mary Father Peter (varies)

Status Category Mass-related, Churchrelated non-mass Church-related nonmass

Role Description Being a member of the church. Teaching for either the citizenship class or religious education class for children. Leads the parish. Assists the priest in administrative and pastoral duties. Directing mass and preaching. Assisting the priest in setting up the Eucharist and other parts of mass. The longest standing church members. Participating in citizenship class or religious education class as a student. Sets up the church for mass. Organizes religious education classes. Chooses readings from the Old and New testaments for mass. Administers the Eucharist. Performs readings during mass. Leads prayer meetings Kinship terms, how members relate to one another.

Parish director Deacon Priest

Church-related nonmass Church-related nonmass Mass-related Mass-related

Acolytes (altar servers Ron Doung, Eros or altar boys) Doung, Jeffrey (when needed) Church elders Students Mr. Sarin, Rons grandmother, parents, aunts and uncles. Students in citizenship and religious ed. Classes Bill Joann Phansy Vesna, Mr. Sarin, Mary, Joann, Phansy Mr. Sarin Robert Dell, Mary (all)

Church-related nonmass Church-related, non mass Mass-related Church-related nonmass Mass-related Mass-related Mass-related Church-related nonmass Church-independent

Sacristan Head of religious education Liturgy organizer Eucharist minister Lector Prayer leader Kinship relations