Week 5: La Virgen de Guadalupe

 As a Catholic, I always knew la Virgen de Guadalupe was a sacred topic, but mostly simply because I knew she was part of religion. In itself my family was never very religious and only called on certain things to reinforce certain cultural practices (like I believe many other Mexicans do). It made my idea on who la Virgen de Guadalupe is and what she represents very confusing for me as I started to question things about my surroundings. Sometimes at night I would try to pray to her because I knew other people had great faith in her, and to a degree I agreed with it, she felt like a benevolent mother. But it was confusing to explain her to other people, for example I used to have a Christian friend when I was in middle school who would constantly ask me about my religion. Particularly she critiqued la Virgen and asked me to explain why she was important in Catholicism and usually I would shift the conversation because she made me uncomfortable (eventually I put an end to our friendship). I never answered her and even if I would have tried to, I am not sure what I would have said because I never knew how to reconcile la Virgen María and la Virgen de Guadalupe. 

It was evident to me they were different, I knew la Virgen de Guadalupe represented, in a sense, México better, she was clearly a retraction from the eurocentric residual from colonization, but at the same time, they were supposed to be one and the same mother of Christ. Eventually, I simply stopped trying to think of this, and instead focus on the peace that la Virgen de Guadalupe brought me, the likeness I saw in her. 

I would say one of the most valuable lessons I have learned in this class has been the ambiguous historical origin of la Virgen, detailed in Prof. López’s essay in week 2. Of course I was familiar with the overall story of her appearance to Juan Diego, but I had never considered the symbolism in her appearance, or the source of her painting. It was amazing to consider that she was meant to be an act of rebellion from the start, indegenous resistance to the colonizer. Frankly, I think those theories make sense, and it has allowed me to see la Virgen today as living rather than passive and confined. Now I like to think of her as a Mexican woman who is capable of anything, she is more than any meaning I or another person can assign, and I hope my relationship with her and further be developed as I grow older and wiser. For now I will take joy in all the artwork Chicanas have produced featuring elements of la Virgen to continue to develop my consciousness of her.