Week 2

The Yolanda Lopez image I will be focusing on is part of Lopez' famous Virgin of Guadalupe series, in which the Virgin of Guadalupe is re-imagined to a contemporary image heavy with Chicano identity and loaded with social and political imagery. Yolanda Lopez frequently inserts imagery to reinvent the Virgin of Guadalupe as to how Lopez imagines how she would look if she were to be updated to blend in the modern world. As a result, Lopez, who stresses the importance of the Virgin of Guadalupe in Chicano culture, reinvents the Lady of Guadalupe as a member of the lower class.

This image, entitled "Margaret F. Stewart: Our Lady of Guadalupe" is a perfect example of the message that Lopez is trying to send with her famous Virgin of Guadalupe series. In this instance, Lopez recreates the Virgin of Guadalupe with the same angelic essence surrounding her, but with some significant changes. Lopez recreates the Virgin of Guadalupe in the image of the archetype of a middle aged working class Chicano woman. This Virgin of Guadalupe, instead of being the mother of Jesus, is depicted as a humble working class sewing machine operator in a maquiladora. In this image, however, there is still traces of the typical angelic depiction of the Virgin of Guadalupe. The angelic child at the bottom with the colored wings, which incidentally are the colors of the American flag, the design of the cloth depicting a starry night sky, and the flowers which are sprouting at the bottom of the cloth. This image perfectly encapsulates Yolanda Lopez' attempts to reinvent the Virgin of Guadalupe as an icon of the working class Chicano in the modern day.