Jimenez-Briseño, Diana (Week 3)

    The image of La Virgen de Guadalupe has been very strong in my upbringing as a Mexican Catholic. My neighborhood was primarily Latinx and the Catholic church in the area reflected that as La Virgen often stood as the central figure not only in terms of iconography, but also prayers and events. However, as a child, I never really understood her as the mother of Jesus. To me, the woman named Mary was Jesus’s mother. La Virgen de Guadalupe was not her; she was distinct in her own presence and importance. Furthermore, her distinct cultural identity made her elusive and exclusive. She was a centrally Latinx religious figure. She represented not only the Catholic church, but Latinx heritage and pride. You could find community in those who also believed in La Virgen de Guadalupe; you shared experiences with one another as a Latinx Catholic. There is a beauty in noticing the people with their Virgen de Guadalupe necklaces, bracelets and automatically finding connection: similar cultural experiences, quinceañeras, December 12th celebrations. 

    Although her image has been extremely powerful in my understanding of religion and culture, my family’s relationship to her has not always been as strong. During a period of their life, they shifted over to Christian religion. That church strongly urged against any iconography, saints, or really, any religious figures that were not the Holy Trinity. My family moved away from the December 12th celebrations and the images originally hanging around the walls. I didn’t think much of it until an AP Art History course in high school. We were going over Miguel Gonzalez’s pearl The Virgin of Guadalupe work and my teacher asked about her history. We were all Latinxs in the class and while most of the class could recount her history and their relationships with her, I could not. I only had the memory of it. That experience really made me question my identity as a Mexican and particularly a Mexican Catholic. How could I not know about the defining point of our culture: a symbol in religion, art, music, festivities. Also, in analyzing the image, the instructor analyzed the image from a logistical framework. She broke down La Virgen's meaning as solely a Spanish tactic to unify Mexicans into accepting the Spanish Catholic Church (protested at the time). Although the history made sense, the deconstruction of her significance to sly manipulation frustrated me. She was and is a culture.

    Since then, I have tried to understand religion from a more cultural standpoint. Recognizing the beauty of la Virgen through mandas, madrugadas, and celebrations on its own and joining them has made me appreciate my family and heritage much more. The images of la Virgen are powerful and I believe that the renditions by artists only serve to emphasize her significance as a figure for the people, especially our community.