Blog 5: La Virgen De Guadalupe

La Virgen De Guadalupe has surrounded my life throughout all of high school, and later continuing on to my community college time period. My first encounter with the image, Virgen De Guadalupe, was when I met my friend, Karen, in high school. Every time I saw Karen, I would always see her wearing a gold necklace with a gold piece image. The gold piece image was a lady looking down and her hands clamped together. Originally, I thought nothing of the image; however, as I started to meet new people in my high school, which is predominantly made up of Mexican-Americans, the image and meaning of Virgen De Guadalupe substantially grew on me. From what I was able to see in high school, the image of Virgen De Guadalupe brings purpose to represent the Mexican Culture. Not a lot of people may know this, but from what my highschool friends told me, Virgen De Guadalupe is a way for my friends to express their cultural identity. Similarly in my religion, Islam, a lot of people in my community wear a necklace with a piece that reads Allah, the name of God in arabic, in order to express their cultural and religious identification. What caught me by surprise, however, was that image of Virgen De Guadalupe also represents a sense of hope. When I played football, I would see my hispanic teammates firmly grab and hold onto the gold piece of Virgen De Guadalupe as a sense of hope and good luck. Lastly, what I personally didn’t know that substantially caught me by surprise was finding out that Virgen De Guadalupe and Virgin Mary are two completely different figures. In my hometown area, the Bay Area, there is a substantial statue of Virgin Mary located in Santa Clara; and it wasn’t until Week 4 when I learned that the statue located in my hometown wasn’t representing Virgen De Guadalupe, but someone completely different. As we continue on with this course, I really hope to learn more about Virgen De Guadalupe, and how she plays a different role compared to Virgin Mary. 

(Virgin Mary statue located in Santa Clara, CA)