Growing up indigenous, my mom tried her best to make sure I saw past the hypocrisy of some religions. Despite having grown up going to tipi meetings and sweat lodges regularly, celebrating Thanksgiving by going to the sunrise ceremonies on Alcatraz, or even having paintings, statues, and shelves of story books depicting Indigenous deities and legends, catholic and christian influence is everywhere. The only time I remember genuinely inquiring about La Virgen de Guadalupe was at some point during elementary school, at our second favorite taqueria in the Mission.
She was painted in vibrant colors, surrounded by roses and cherubs, looking down with her serene sideway glance to what looked like one of the angel babies flying around her. I guess, in my head, I always assumed people only painted male religious figures. My mom always told me “they worship penis more than they ever worship any sort of deity”. I never fully understood that statement as a child but I knew that seeing this painting contradicted what my mom said. I asked her who was painted so beautifully on the far wall on the other side of the taqueria and she said,
“Mira mija, esa es la virgen que dicen que es la mama de jesus, verdad? Pero también dicen que se embarazó sin tener sexo y te voy a decir ahora, esa es la primera y más importante mentira.”
After that, I never inquired about her again. I guess I was satisfied with knowing, or somewhere deep inside I had accepted, that La Virgen’s story was always stained with misogyny or some sort of toxic ideology that made her less human in the name of her purity. One day I hope to find out the complete honest and unfiltered truth about who the woman was in this beautiful depiction that we all are so familiar with.
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