Blog Post #5 - Virgen de Guadalupe

  

I have three distinct memories of la Virgen de Guadalupe. The most recent memory of la Virgencita is watching La Rosa de Guadalupe on TV with my family. This is as close as I have gotten to a recurring encounter with the image of la Virgen de Guadalupe in the past three or four years. It is a very odd thing though that la Virgen de Guadalupe has been at the center of the plot of a TV show. Why do people not protest this instead? The show uses religion to entertain, so why is that not viewed as sacriligeous?

The second house I moved to in Simi Valley was located in a predominantly brown community and on a corner diagonal from a mural of la Virgen de Guadalupe. I never really paid attention to it much because I have never been too much of a religious person, but I do remeber going to visit the mural twice. Once after my sister's quinceñera to leave flowers that were leftover from the party as well as once on the 12th of December.

The home I've been living in for the past three or four years does not have any murals of la Virgen de Guadalupe around. There are more white neighbors around where I live so that definitely has an impact on the neigborhood environment. Since moving, I never really realized that there was a mural or any onmipresent image of la Virgen de Guadalupe missing in the environment around me because I just never thought too much of it.

I have no memory of this, but I do have a photograph of myself wearing a blue veil dressed like la Virgen Maria (Virgin Mary). I now know that la Virgen Maria and la Virgen de Guadalupe are not the same thing. When I was a kid I thought they were the same woman just in different clothing and veils. Now that I've grown up, I know they are not the same, nor do I feel that they represent nor are tied to the same communities. 

I feel like I fall closer to Yolanda M. Lopez's perspective of la Virgen de Guadalupe because I do not have an close or reigious relationship with la Virgen de Guadalupe. I hear of her from my mom when she says things like, "la virgencita nos quida" (the Virgen takes care of us). Also, perhaps because I did not grow up around dozens of murals and constant images of la Virgen de Guadalue that I do not feel as close to her as others may feel. Or that may not make a difference becasue I don't consider myself religious.