From Icon to Symbol of Empowerment

An odd thing happened to the Virgin of Guadalupe as she settled into the culture of Los Angeles. North of the border--in this land of Chicanos, outlandish pop culture and brash consumerism--the brown-skinned, dark-haired patroness of Catholic Mexico has assumed a new identity among some 1990s admirers.

As tens of thousands of Catholics honored her feast day Thursday with traditional midnight Masses and processions, Latino cultural and religious experts said the Virgin of Guadalupe--a powerful symbol of national unity in Mexico for centuries--has become a distinctly secular icon, particularly in Los Angeles.

For some Latinas, who may not be practicing Catholics, Our Lady of Guadalupe has been transformed into a modern symbol of personal independence and power. One Latina artist depicted her as an athletic-looking jogger, with loose, flowing hair. And among non-Latinos she has become an offbeat collectible, branded on mouse-pads and hand towels on the shelves of trendy shops.

“I’m a non-Catholic, non-Christian Chicano from East L.A., but the Virgin is still very strong in my imagery, in my self-expression in terms of symbolizing hope,” said Tomas Benitez, assistant to the director of Self Help Graphics, a community visual arts center in East Los Angeles.

Other see her image as a marketing tool.

Some Korean American shop owners in South-Central Los Angeles, eager to make their businesses attractive to Mexican American neighbors, have painted Our Lady on outside walls like an advertisement.

And Thursday night, long after devout Catholics had prayed to the Virgin in church, Lindsey Haley planned to lead a group discussion and poetry reading celebrating “Virgin Images” at a Venice literary center called Beyond Baroque.

“We want people to know not just the history of how she came to be, but how she’s been used and transformed over the years in the [Los Angeles] community,” Haley said. “It’s bringing awareness to the people who are buying the items.”

To be sure, the abundance and even exploitation of the religious image--a serene-faced woman, her head slightly tilted down and hands clasped in prayer--among Mexicans spans centuries. In Mexico, her picture graces churches and cantinas, buses and corporate offices. Millions on Thursday made the pilgrimage to her basilica, Mexico’s most venerated shrine, in Mexico City.

In the U.S. Southwest, she has long been a mainstay in Mexican American communities, honored with murals, medals, shrines, calendars and even tattoos.

But as Mexican and Mexican American culture become absorbed into mainstream America, especially in Los Angeles and the Southwest, experts say it is no surprise that the Virgin’s popularity is surging in the secular world.

Our Lady has a newfound appeal among feminist Latinas, many of whom are more interested in symbols of social empowerment than religious devotion. The Virgin also has new crossover appeal to non-Catholics and non-Latinos, trendsetters eager to embrace the latest artsy fad.

The Virgin’s worldly appearances have upset some Catholics, said Father Gregory Coiro, spokesman for the Los Angeles Roman Catholic Archdiocese.

“It’s a cause for concern and dismay when a religious symbol is so crassly commercialized and . . . seemingly no respect is shown anymore,” Coiro said. “It’s an almost in-your-face attitude: ‘You don’t have a copyright on this, so we can put it on something as frivolous as a Frisbee or wrapping paper.’ ”

He explained that Catholics revere the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe as a miraculous icon.

“I realize the image has been closely associated with other movements, but I would say they are secondary to her as the symbol of the mother of God,” he said. Even some of those who study the icon as a popular phenomenon agree with Coiro.

“In Los Angeles, it really is an icon that embraces the new immigrants and inspires hope, but at the same time it is used for consumerism by other people,” said Gerald LeClerc, a Los Angeles architect who documents the Virgin’s images in public places. According to Catholic beliefs, the Virgin Mary appeared before Juan Diego, a poor Indian, on a hill northwest of Mexico City in 1531. Mary instructed Diego to have the local bishop build a church on the site, but the bishop did not believe Diego. In a subsequent appearance, she told him to pick flowers for the bishop. When he presented them, the roses fell from his cloak, and the virgin’s image, imprinted on the garment, was visible. The Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe is now near the site.

Revealing herself as a dark-skinned woman in Mexico at a time when the indigenous population was oppressed by light-skinned Europeans, the Virgin has remained one of Mexico’s most enduring symbols.

Historically, the Virgin of Guadalupe was carried when the Mexicans warred against the Spaniards for independence. In 1910 Emiliano Zapata led reformers to battle with her image on his flag.

More recently, her visage was carried by California migrant workers fighting to unionize in the late 1960s and by protesters of Proposition 187, the state ballot measure designed to deny an array of public services to illegal immigrants.

Mexican American artists first incorporated the Virgin into popular political art during the Chicano movement of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s as a proud reflection of ethnic identity.

“I think to young people she represents a person who is empowered,” said Gerald Resendez, chairman of the Chicano studies department at Cal State Northridge. “Young people want that same kind of self-confidence.”

Some Latinas have ascribed to her strength needed by contemporary women facing issues of class, gender and ethnicity. Latina artists often depict the Virgin as a woman living in the ‘90s, juggling duties of mother, wife and independent woman.

“What they [Latinas] have been able to do is take that symbol and express the issues of being a minority and female,” said Miguel Dominguez, a professor at Cal State Dominguez Hills, who has organized an exhibit of contemporary images of the Virgin by Latina artists.

One work he found portrays Our Lady as a teenager in tennis shoes, taking off her shawl and marching out of the frame, he said.

Trini Garcia-Valdez, owner of a Santa Monica-based mail order business called Pura Cultura, that specializes in Virgin images and books, said Latinas have an affinity for the icon because she looks like them and plays a non-authoritarian religious role.

“A friend of mine who has really cut strings from the church said, ‘I’m really hanging on to the Virgen. She’s brown like me and she doesn’t punish you if you do something bad,’ ” said Garcia-Valdez.

A collector of Virgin images for eight years, Debra Padilla wears a watch bearing the image every day, and in her Venice office is a small shrine to the saint.

Padilla said she has made a hobby of searching for new Virgin objects. She figured her Guadalupe mouse pad would be the most outlandish item in her collection. “Then I found a phone card with her on it at a Korean-owned store.”

But Padilla said her infatuation with the image is not solely rooted in Catholic beliefs.

“I honor and respect the story of her and the power of her,” she said. “She represents to me independence and freedom and a strong sense of identity. . . . I think it speaks to the point that I am very proud to be Mexican American.”

Not all who are drawn to Our Lady, however, can claim ethnic or spiritual identity with her.

The Virgin’s picture is a popular theme in hip alternative stores from Pasadena to the Westside. In Santa Monica, a store sells lounge pillows bearing the Virgin’s image, and the shop’s owner said anything featuring the likeness is considered a kitschy collectible.

With this latest commercial appearance--which includes her image on a skateboard in hip-hop clothes--many say the Virgin’s assimilation into America is complete.

“Suddenly, we’ve got Frida Kahlo water bottles and Virgen de Guadalupe Frisbees, because the next step of what we do with our culture is we cannibalize and market the hell out of it,” said Benitez, the Eastside arts administrator.

“Look at Day of the Dead celebrations, Las Posadas, even mariachis and pinatas,” Dominguez said. “What we are witnessing [with the Virgin image] is something that is quite inevitable.”