My weird relationship with Lady Guadalupe

As somebody who grew up in the Pacific Northwest, where there is little exposure to Mexican culture in comparison to southern parts of the United States, before I came to Mexico I knew nothing about Lady Guadalupe. Like, I didn’t even know that she existed. Well, I soon found out that  she is one of the most iconic figures in Mexico. She is a large part of the culture here, since according to Wikipedia (sorry ubc profs), 80% of the country actually identifies as Catholic.

Kind of quick of history about her: So basically according the the Catholics,  on December 9, 1531, an Indigenous dude named  Juan Diego (let’s be real that wasn’t his actual name that was a spanish name) saw a vision of  the Lady G on the Hill of Tepeyac (today a suburb of Mexico City). She spoke to him in Nahuatl (the language of the Aztec empire), and identified herself as the Virgin Mary. And then, she was like

“Son, build a church for me! Or in my honour or something like this…ANYWAYS, so Juan’s like yeah for sheezy lady, and runs to tell the archbishop of Mexico City what was up. The archbishop has his doubts (fair enough archbishop, people be crazy) so tells Juan to go ask the lady for a miracle to prove herself. But anyways, she does prove herself. She first heals Juan’s uncle, and then convinces Juan to go get a bunch of flowers from the top of this Hill of Tepeyac, which was normally this barren desert area, especially in December. And I bet you can guess what happened. HE FINDS SOME FLORES. So then the Lady G puts the flowers in Juan’s cloak and Juan runs back to the archbishop and dumps the flowers infront of the guy. Boom. Also, on the fabric of the cloak there was was the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe. They build the church where she appeared, and today is  the most visited Catholic pilgrimage sight in the world! And! you can see Juan’s cloak in the basilica still!

But there has been a lot of scholarly debate as how possible this really is, or if it actually happened. Conveniently enough, the Lady Guadalupe, with her darker skin and speaking the local language of the time was a great tool of colonization. The Spanish had destroyed the temple of the mother goddess Tonantzin where this Lady G Church was built, and converted Natives would still address the Lady G as Tonantzin. But nonetheless, she still is a huge part of the imagery of Mexican culture here.

I kind of like it. You can find her image, her statue, or shrines to her everywhere you go. On the street, in houses, in schools. I’ve even seen a gigantic version of her on the side of the mountain in the Sierra Gorda even. On the street, you see people pass by her at randomly made shrines and cross themselves. Also people in their cars will cross themselves.

Over the course of my time here, I have become slightly obsessed with her and I can’t really figure out why. Obsessed like, I take pictures of her wherever I see her, I have her as my background picture on my cellphone, and my friends bought me a Lady Guadalupe CD as a gift. What?

SO WHY DID I CONSIDER GETTING A TATTOO OF HER ON MY BODY FOREVER?! (chill mom, I didn’t, finally). I don’t know. She’s so reliably mexican maybe? Because she’s literally everywhere, and she’s still very important. So on one hand, I think she’s beautiful, and I could stare at photos of her in churches for a long time. But…but…knowing her history? Knowing how she has been used, and is being used? Who knows. Inconclusive conclusion.