Keeping Faith : Prayers to the Virgin of Guadelupe Fill a Special Night at an East L.A. Shrine

On the eve of the feast of Our Lady of Guadelupe, the beloved patroness of Mexico, Jesus Tegeda stood visiting quietly in Spanish with neighbors and friends in the far corner of a parking lot off Brooklyn Avenue in East L.A.

Tegeda, here 37 years from Jalisco, was remembering a country he had not visited in almost three decades.

About 50 of Mexico’s children and their offspring gathered in the parking lot Friday evening around the grotto of Our Lady in the corner--a shrine they tend lovingly all year long.

What brought Tegeda to the shrine that night?

It was so simple he looked momentarily shy. Grinning, he shrugged: “The virgin. And the faith.”

Laura Romero, a secretary in the garment district, explained the sentiments of Tegeda and other Mexican-born who had gathered, like her mother, Hortensia Romero: “They just want to feel like they’re in Mexico. They don’t want to be there. They just want to get the feeling.”

“It’s like this everywhere in Mexico tonight,” Zorina Mendez, here 21 years from Sonora, said in Spanish. “We’ve been doing it here for five years. We pray; we sing to her. We’re united; we feel close. We don’t want to forget the tradition. We want to pass it on to our kids.”

Indeed, it was a night of children, prayer and food--a homey gathering not unlike one for the birthday of a family member.

The feast actually marks the date of the apparition of the Virgin Mary in 1531 to Juan Diego in Tepayac, northwest of what is now Mexico City, but several people Friday referred to it as Mary’s birthday.

The rain had cleared, leaving a cold, clear night. Our Lady looked splendid in the moonlight, draped in colored Christmas tree lights, as were the cactus plants that edge the tiled grotto. Her pale blue gown and rose veil--the fabric a mosaic of tiny pieces of ceramic--caught the light. More light shone from the candles, sheathed in tall glasses, that stood at the base.

It was a colorful spot in drab surroundings--the fenced asphalt parking lot behind Self-Help Graphics and Art, a studio and gallery for Latino artists--and a communal triumph.

When Self-Help moved into the old Catholic school building, Sister Karen Boccalero, studio director, decided to get rid of the huge, dilapidated, peeling statue of Our Lady of Guadelupe.

But the neighbors were not about to see the Virgin tossed into the garbage. They rescued her and, before long, the artists had joined them in transforming the free-standing statue into the lovely mosaic ensconced in a grotto.

On Friday evening, the neighbors kept a vigil on the eve of the feast, without much ritualized pomp. They had come to keep her company--with a mixture of respect and familiarity. They wanted to be with her, if not until dawn, at least until her feast day began at midnight.

They built a fire in front of the grotto and circled it with chairs from their kitchens and lawns. Banked pots and kettles, brimming with the makings of a feast, sat around the fragrant fire.

What ceremony there was commenced with the rosary. The adults stood in a cluster, some shielding themselves against the cold with serapes and down coats, the men holding their sombreros in their hands, praying in unison. Behind them, several tykes reveled in the gusty air, defiantly jumping in a shallow puddle that had collected on the pavement.

While they prayed, Romero, listening to the requests made between formal prayers, whispered: “Most of the mothers have kids in gangs. They are praying for them. They are praying for the soldiers in Somalia. For everybody.” One woman, Romero said, was not prone to pray much, but “she’s having rough times. Her son is in jail, and her daughter is leaving” the area.

They warbled through a hymn, then gradually shifted to the low-key festivities. While the women readied the food, a boombox resting on the grotto’s ledge played rancheras, the soulful country-Western music of Mexico.

And then a plentiful meal: steaming pots of pozole (hominy stew) and menudo (tripe soup); rice; chicken mole ; delicately spiced tamales; steaming cups of aromatic, nutritious atole (a corn-based beverage); wine, and tequila with lime. Most chatted while sitting around the fire; a few men stood in a cluster in the background.

When Jose Feliciano’s rendition of “Feliz Navidad” finished on the boombox, more prayers followed.

The sweetness of a gathering like this is up against great odds, and the group around the statue lives with that awareness. When a van screeched into the parking lot, one woman joked, “Oh, here comes a drive-by shooting.”

People laughed--lamely.

By 10 p.m., younger children had curled in chairs or in their mothers’ arms, asleep under blankets. Mauro Martinez gently picked his daughter up, carried her home and returned.

Soon young people started streaming in, fresh with night life. They ate from heaped plates, turning the talk briefly to ballgames they had attended or watched on television.

One young couple walked in, hand in hand, and skirted the group. They stood off to the side, gazing intently at the statue, obviously praying, before they joined their friends.

Just as people seemed restless in the cold and began checking their watches, Victoria Lopez arrived with a huge basket of hot bunuelos --fried, sugared pastries. People came to life, munching pastries and drinking cinnamon tea.

Midnight.

Accompanied by a cassette recording, they stood at the base of the statue and sang “Las Mananitas” the traditional Mexican serenade for a feast day or birthday.

And clapped and cheered:

“ Viva la Virgin de Guadelupe! Viva!’ ‘