Lupita

Octavio Paz once wrote that Mexicans will believe in only two things: the lottery, and the Virgin of Guadalupe. In San Antonio, her images are prolific. 

La Virgen as seen in Linda's Mexican Restaurant

She appears on buildings, on murals, in the names of streets and businesses, in art, on merchandise, and under many names: la Virgen, Queen of Mexico, Empress of the Americas, Patroness of the Americas, Our Lady, Lupe, and Lupita (from the place name Guadalupe). One may be a Guadalupana (Guadalupean) as a member of a Sociedad Guadalupana (Guadalupean Society), in which the faithful gather together in the Lady's name to perform good works and support one another.

In the traditional image, she is depicted in a jasmine flower print dress, covered by a starry mantle, hands in prayer, eyes downcast, radiating heavenly fire, atop a crescent moon and carried by a cherub whose wings are the colors of the Mexican flag. (Where this baby angel gets the upper body strength to carry around a grown woman standing on a piece of the moon is anyone's guess. Maybe he trains at the same place as buff baby Jesus?)

La Virgen at MujerARTES

La Virgen in El Placazo

Her appearance will vary. She is sometimes flanked by roses, a symbol of queenhood and the appearance to Juan Diego; sometimes she is crowned and her mantle fringed with lace. As with many icons of the divine, she is made symbol of conflicting ideologies: women's liberation, female modesty, the struggle of the working poor, the Catholicism of rich Anglos.

La Virgen at Adelante Boutique

La Virgen on a motorcycle jacket at the 2015 International Women's Day March

To me, the Virgin of Guadalupe is a compelling and questionable figure. Almost perpetually in a pose of humility and contemplation, she never looks directly at the viewer; her veneration as a virgin follows a long trend in the history of humankind of idolizing "untouched" women, deities or otherwise, in our stories and mythology. The usual flipside to this adoration is, of course, the scorn of the sexually immodest woman.

American society tends to place a premium on virginity. There's pressure to lose it - whatever "it" even is - and once you do, you are looked down upon. I think about Mary, celebrated as the indefinite virgin, and I wonder if she would be less of an icon as a non-virgin. As a lady who had sex. Motherhood and fertility are venerated in their own ways in human history - see the Venus of Willendorf - but Mary's case is particularly complicated, for in Catholicism, her always-virginal status is one of her defining achievements despite the fact that she and Joseph went on to have a handful of kids after Jesus. Presumably this was done through the natural method, considering none of the siblings are treated as additional Godlings.

It's as if Mary is exalted as long as it's the virginal version we're talking about. The parts after that, the parts where she has other kids, loses the glow of a untouched maiden - that Mary is seldom adored in art and in liturgy. The Mary who had to look after a brood of children, cook and clean, and go to sleep with her husband - that Mary doesn't shine and sparkle, her skin is no longer smooth, her body is worn with hardship.

What would it be like to be adored for the person you used to be? To have your value reduced to a state of being between this time and that time?

"Breakfast at El Tepeyac" by Israel Rico

"The Seven-Year Itch at El Tepeyac" by Israel Rico

The emphasis on characterizing a person for having had sex versus not having had sex is a curious one. Athena and Artemis, members of the Greek pantheon of deities, are celebrated as virgins by choice. Their commitment to virginity is an indication of their strength, their independence, and their inability to be owned. It definitely sounds attractive, but the connection to abstinence from intercourse makes one wonder if women having sex necessarily entails weakness, dependence, and ownership. Looking closely, it's not hard to see where we turned intercourse into a power struggle - the "loser" has to carry half of the "winner's" DNA for nine months and then raise the thing until whatever age society deems it an adult. Marriage, too, was long considered an exchange of commodity and property; some say this implication survives through today. Can one be sexual and independent? Married without being owned? Or for the women in our mythology, is it impossible to have one's cake and eat it, too?

Then there are the associations with uncleanliness. Why is a woman considered pure today and impure tomorrow just because someone stuck their pee-pee in her overnight? (Logically, it would follow that the impurity lies with the man, not the woman - but so often it's the latter who is stigmatized; much like a game of tag, the recipient is more at fault than the giver.) Do the virgin births and virgin deities celebrated across the globe indicate some kind of ages-long complex about dirtiness and penises? Sex, as necessary as it is to ensure the survival of the species, is also a way to transmit disease, and if you're St. Augustine, it's the mode through which occurs the transmission of original sin. It's no wonder that intercourse, much like other "unclean" areas of life such as disease, defecation, and animals, finds its way into our lexicon of swear words.

The Virgin avoids these impurities, having been impregnated and given birth without the Polluting Touch of Man™. Unlike Athena and Artemis, however, Mary wasn't even a virgin by choice, just told by an angel she'd bear the son of God - no 'yes' or 'no thanks' option available. Virginity for Mary doesn't imply any sort of radical independence or self-ownership; if anything it's a celebration of imagined bodily purity and an interlude before she proceeds with the usual marital duties with Joseph.

The sum of it implies an inherent dirtiness to mankind, and to womankind an inherent purity that's intact up until we're poked. (You might deduce I have a beef with Augustine for his gift to Christian thought on sex.) Imagine an impressive, exalted goddess-figure who Did The Thing and it wasn't the end of decency and morality as we know it. "Hey, I'm the Lady of Guadalupe, I gave birth to God and hauled water from a well every day and sometimes do miracles and also I had sex sometimes, that happened. Please care for the poor and for one another. That would be great. Thanks."

"Walking Guadalupe" by Yolanda Lopez

"Victoria F. Franco: Our Lady of Guadalupe" by Yolanda Lopez

"Nepantla" by Santa Barraza

All told, I really like la Guadalupana, a model of sanctity and unconditional love. It's a comfort to have a female deity figure for once. Working at an arts organization, especially one grounded in a heavily Mexican-American setting, I come across a plethora of Guadalupean depictions by numerous artists, which is always one of my favorite things to see. Two notable pieces below, done by the artist P. Gonzalo Carrasco Espinosa in 1933, depict a more active Lady shanking a sea monster and protecting an infant from a dragon, although it actually looks like she's holding a disoriented baby away from the grubby hands of some well-meaning children.

"The Virgin of Guadalupe Defending Mexican Youth" by P. Gonzalo Carrasco Espinosa

"The Virgin of Guadalupe Defending Mexican Youth" by P. Gonzales Carrasco Espinosa

For much more on Our Lady of Guadalupe and her depictions in art, please visit the following links:

Virgin of Guadalupe
La Reina de México y Emperatriz de América (English)
Our Lady of Controversy: Alma López's "Irreverent Apparition"
Some Like A Virgin, Some Don't / Alma Lopez generates controversy in New Mexico

Until later,
Caro

(P.S.: Mexico isn't the only place where Mary occupies a prominent spot in popular culture. She appears from time to time in Japan as well; check out the following from Natsumi Ando's Maria Ppoino! [Holy Maria!] and Rinko Ueda's Home. Read left to right!)

From Maria Ppoino! (2000)

From Home (2000)