Our Lady of Guadalupe is everywhere in art, memory and protest. She's instantly recognizable — hands in prayer, floral dress, starry mantle — but she represents much more than religious devotion. Her 500-year history weaves through colonial violence, activism, survival and cultural adaptation. Today, she remains a powerful symbol, embraced across generations, communities and identities.
"She's pervasive everywhere. She hangs on cars, people tattoo her on their bodies, and artists in particular have expanded that image. They might not look at her in religious terms, but they definitely look at her culturally," said Jeanette Rodriguez, a professor of theology at Seattle University.
This episode explores the evolving meaning of her image through the lens of artists and scholars. Mingei International Museum curator Ariana Torres reflects on the contradictions that give Guadalupe lasting relevance. Theologian Jeanette Rodriguez offers a decolonial interpretation of her origin. Designer Claudia Rodríguez-Biezunski draws on family and heritage to bring la Virgen into contemporary fashion. And muralist Josue Baltezar shares how he honored the connection between the Virgin and an Indigenous earth deity.
"I think that she's kind of been reclaimed since the beginning. I think reclamation is really what has built her. She's been reclaimed to be against Spain, to be the symbol of Mexican identity. And then she's been reclaimed to, I think, in a way, reject even a broader Mexican nationalist identity — to be like, this is a very personal symbol to me and it has nothing to do with maybe even just being Mexican," Torres said. "And I think it's really interesting how she has been reclaimed as a feminist figure with a lot of people."
Across borders and belief systems, Guadalupe's image lives on — reshaped by those who continue to find meaning in her presence.
Guests:
- Ariana Torres, assistant curator at Mingei International Museum
- Claudia Rodríguez-Biezunski, fashion designer and owner of Sew Loka
- Jeanette Rodriguez, PhD, Professor of Theology at Seattle University
- Josue Baltezar, muralist and designer
Mentioned in this episode:
- Yolanda López | Chicana artist and activist known for reimagining Our Lady of Guadalupe as a symbol of empowerment
- "Fashioning an Icon: Virgin of Guadalupe Imagery in Textile Design" | Exhibition exploring the Virgin of Guadalupe's influence on textile design and fashion currently on view at Mingei International Museum
- Nahuatl | Indigenous language of the Aztecs, still spoken today in parts of Mexico and the United States
- Northridge earthquake | A 6.7-magnitude quake that struck Los Angeles in 1994, causing widespread damage and lasting trauma
- Our Lady of Guadalupe Church | Catholic church in Logan Heights that also runs an elementary school
- Las Maestras Center | UCSB-based organization uplifting Chicana, Latina and Indigenous feminisms through research and storytelling
- Arianna Ystelle | Chicana photographer whose photo series in "Fashioning an Icon" captures 30 portraits taken across San Diego and Tijuana
- Diana Benavídez | Binational artist from the San Diego-Tijuana border region known for piñata art that blends pop culture and social commentary, including "Even Guadalupe Needs a Break," featured in "Fashioning an Icon"
Sources:
- "Mexican Catholicism: Conquest, Faith, and Resistance" (Jessica Frankovich, Berkley Center for Religion, Peace & World Affairs, 2019)
- "Mexico's Independence Day marks the beginning of a decade-long revolution" (Heather Brady, National Geographic, 2018)
- "Pilgrimage and revolution: How Cesar Chavez married faith and ideology in landmark farmworkers' march" (Lloyd Daniel Barba, The Conversation, 2023)
- "Sew Loka creates 4 x Jackets for the San Diego International Airport" (Sew Loka, 2024)
- "Earth system impacts of the European arrival and Great Dying in the Americas after 1492" (Alexander Koch, Chris Brierley, Mark M. Maslin, Simon L. Lewis, Quaternary Science Reviews, 2019)
- "Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs" (Camilla Townsend, Oxford University Press, 2019)
- "How smallpox devastated the Aztecs – and helped Spain conquer an American civilization 500 years ago" (Richard Gunderman, The Conversation via PBS News, 2019)
- Yolanda M. López: Works: 1975-1978 (UC San Diego MFA Thesis Exhibition Program, 1978)
- "Remembering Yolanda López, Chicana Artist And Activist From Barrio Logan" (Julia Dixon Evans, KPBS, 2021)
- "How painter Yolanda López gave the Virgin of Guadalupe a feminist tweak" (Carolina A. Miranda, Los Angeles Times, 2022)
- "Is our Lady of Guadalupe inspired by the goddess Tonantzin?" (Mexico News Daily, 2023)
- "From Coatlicue to Guadalupe: The Image of the Great Mother in Mexico" (Patrizia Granziera, Studies in World Christianity, 2004
- Our Lady of Guadalupe Explained (Steubenville Press via The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington, 2013)
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Episode 8: Our Lady of Guadalupe Transcript
Julia Dixon Evans: Our Lady of Guadalupe, or la Virgen de Guadalupe, is arguably one of the most recognizable symbols of Mexican identity — possibly as evocative of the country as the Mexican flag itself. As a piece of art, her image has sparked intense devotion, reimagination and rebellion. And it turns out, San Diego has played a significant part in her 500-year story. You probably know what she looks like: olive skin, hands in prayer, pink floral dress and her blue-green mantle — almost like a cape adorned with stars. But Our Lady of Guadalupe is packed with layers. She's been adored inside and outside of religious spaces for centuries. A source of both pride and pain, representing times of both triumph and tragedy.
Ariana Torres: I actually, I think that her complications are really what made her into the icon that she is. I think because she has these roots as a colonial figure, kind of really imposed by the Catholic church and to aid in conversion to Catholicism.
Evans: Ariana Torres is a San Diego curator who has studied the way Our Lady of Guadalupe is used in art.
Torres: I think it's really interesting all of these different ways that she's been used and how contradictory they can be and how these contradictions can coexist. And because of all of these different facets, people — anybody — can find one facet and be like, that's what I'm connecting with. And I think that's really powerful.
Evans: That complexity appears from the very beginning — from her origin story. Jeanette Rodriguez is a professor of theology at Seattle University. She's been studying and writing about Our Lady of Guadalupe for decades. She sees a different version than the one many people are used to. And through her story, Jeanette sees Guadalupe not as a symbol of servility, but one of empowerment and liberation.
Jeanette Rodriguez: The story is about overturning the Indigenous worldview from one of destruction and death due to the conquest to a world that gives life and freedom to all.
If you notice her face and her eyes, one is lighter than the other. And so for me as a mestiza, — someone who is Spanish Indian — that is significant to me. That she was not Indian and she was not Spanish, but she was a mestiza, a mix. She didn't speak English, she didn't speak Spanish — she spoke in Nahuatl. She spoke in the language of the people.
Evans: The image of Our Lady of Guadalupe was born during the Conquest, when the Spanish invaded the Americas and violently imposed Catholicism on Indigenous people. But her power has persisted through history. She's been reclaimed and celebrated by people both Indigenous and European, rich and poor, religious and secular.
Rodriguez: She's pervasive everywhere. She hangs on cars, people tattoo her on their bodies, and artists in particular have expanded that image. They might not look at her in religious terms, but they definitely look at her culturally.
Evans: Today on The Finest, we're diving deep into this iconic image. How it started with an epic story in the midst of disaster. And how it's evolved. Her image has been venerated, it's been revolutionary, it's even been punk.
Rodriguez: The Mexican Revolution happened — it was a priest who called everybody via her banner. Or the United Farm Workers lead with her banner. So they understand her presence and her image as an affirmation of not just the dignity of the human person, but the permission to fight for justice.
Evans: Our Lady of Guadalupe has remained powerful through so many eras, in part because of the worshipers, activists and artists who have reimagined and recontextualized her. And that's still happening today. We meet someone right here in San Diego who's part of that long tradition of artists drawing strength from Our Lady of Guadalupe's image, expanding on its meaning and significance. And she's using Our Lady of Guadalupe's original medium and one of her signature features: clothing.
Claudia Rodríguez-Biezunski: My name's Claudia Rodríguez-Biezunski. I'm the owner, designer and creator of Sew Loka. And it matters to me because it reminds me of my grandma. It's comforting, it's identity, it's culture. It's me, it's her, it's us, it's everything.
Evans: From KPBS Public Media, this is The Finest, a podcast about the people, art and movements redefining culture in San Diego. I'm Julia Dixon Evans.
[Theme Music]
Evans: This spring, the Mingei International Museum in Balboa Park opened an exhibit called "Fashioning an Icon." It features more than 80 pieces of clothing, textiles, adornments and jewelry from artists in Mexico and the United States, exploring that enduring legacy of Our Lady of Guadalupe and why she shows up so much in fashion.
Rodríguez-Biezunski: It's so iconic, where you could really dress it up in this very punk rock kind of feel. And I was like, oh my god, we could really make her punk rock. But at the same time, you're like, OK, still very respectful.
Evans: Claudia is best known locally as the creator of Sew Loka, a sewing studio and clothing brand. She's one of three local artists featured in the exhibition. We recently stopped by the Mingei to talk to Claudia and the exhibit's curator Ariana.
Torres: This is the perfect exhibition for me to explore because of how I grew up with her image and also because I was like, I know a lot of cool people that like to explore the Virgin of Guadalupe in San Diego.
Evans: Claudia's contribution to the exhibit is a striking leather and plaid jacket. Filling the entire back of the piece is a brightly-colored, sewn leather Guadalupe — or as Claudia, Ariana and many others call her: la Virgencita.
Rodríguez-Biezunski: And so the back is a leather piece that's the image of the Virgencita. I utilized this technique, it's like a mosaic — cut out all the little tiny pieces, layered it right on top of each other. All the leather pieces were all donated. What I did for the sleeves, it was a vintage wool skirt. The front is plaid, which I love plaid — it's an homage to my punk rock roots. The inside, it's this really fun, soft, fuzzy fabric that has these little hints of yellows and blues and greens. I wanted for you to, when you wear it, for it to feel a certain kind of way. So the image of the Virgencita for me resembles a lot of hope and resilience, and she's got my back, and so I want you to, when you wear it, to also feel like that, but also to have that warmth and comfort of the textiles that I used.
Evans: And Ariana, can you talk about this piece from a curator's perspective?
Torres: Yeah, of course. So I thought it was really interesting in the way that you have collected different bits of these fabrics from community members to incorporate in the piece. And I find that is very reflective of how people connect with the Virgin of Guadalupe's image more broadly. They've all kind of contributed to what she means in the end. And I think it's really interesting to have all of these different histories on this jacket.
Evans: Much like it's a mosaic of fabrics, Claudia's jacket is pulling together a patchwork of ideas about the Virgin from different angles. Like many who feel a strong affinity for Guadalupe, Claudia is not religious — but the image still holds huge personal and cultural significance.
Rodríguez-Biezunski: I did grow up Catholic and I did my first communion, all that kind of stuff. But it surpasses all that. It has so much cultural identity and powerful, feminine energy. And it feels beautiful to be represented in that kind of way.
Evans: And for Claudia, there's one person she especially thinks of when she sees la Virgencita.
Rodríguez-Biezunski: My grandma, I truly felt that she had this deep connection with her.
Evans: And when Claudia was a kid, she remembers an almost supernatural moment of connection between Guadalupe and her grandma in the midst of a natural disaster.
Rodríguez-Biezunski: I was living in L.A., in the '94 earthquake, when the Northridge earthquake happened.
Archived news clip: The original earthquake that hit at about 5:31 was between a 6.5 and 6.7, a very strong earthquake.
Rodríguez-Biezunski: And we were under a table trying to just shelter in place.
Archived news clip: The freeway itself has buckled and collapsed.
Rodríguez-Biezunski: And my grandmother was praying and she was specifically praying to the Virgencita and she was praying, praying, praying. And then it would just stop.
Archived news clip: Well, we'll tell you this is a rather strong aftershock that we are feeling right now. We're looking at a live picture.
Rodríguez-Biezunski: And then it would all of a sudden start shaking again and she would pray and then it would stop. And I was just like, oh my god, she's really connected. And so I truly felt that.
Evans: Claudia's grandmother passed away right around the time that she originally exhibited this jacket at the San Diego International Airport last year.
Rodríguez-Biezunski: So I was like, all right, I'm gonna dedicate this to my grandma. She lived a very long life, and I don't feel like she's really gone, like she's shown up for me whenever I get into these spaces of having the imposter syndrome, I'm like, Chelo, where are you? Her name is Consuelo, which means comfort, but she went by Chelo.
She had a love language and her love language was food. She always had frijoles and always made tortillas every single day, every single day. And so sometimes people would be like, we should skip school and go to your house. And I would be like, OK, yeah, let's go to my house. And so she would make the salsa and the molcajete and she would be like, you guys got out of school early, huh? We're like, yeah, we go out of school early. She's like, you guys gotta eat. You're too skinny, you're too skinny. You're like, OK.
But yeah, she's definitely comfort. She was very like, "get up," and scolding me to basically be like, "don't be a weenie, get up." She lost her husband when she was a very young wife, and she was with four kids, never remarried and she was like on survival mode. I don't know, there was something about my grandma. She's very Indigenous looking: She always had her two long braids. She just had this presence about her. And so when she did do that prayer under the table, I was like, she does have a direct connection.
Evans: That connection's so strong that when she sees Our Lady of Guadalupe, she feels like she's seeing her grandma.
Rodríguez-Biezunski: Now her image is like, I'm like, oh, I think about my Chelo all the time. You know, when I see her, and I'm like, but grandma's still here. And so it's a very comforting image for sure.
Evans: The kind of relationship Claudia has with Our Lady of Guadalupe — comforting, loving, but strong and intense — is very characteristic of this image of Mary. That's according to Jeanette, the theologian.
Rodriguez: It's a very intimate relationship that people have with her. She is their mother. She is our mother — a long line of women who have spoken up for the oppressed, who accompany the poor and their families, who have sacrificed, who have wept, who have protested. So she's not different from the women who love her and, unfortunately, sometimes the way Mary gets represented in traditional religious institutions is this very passive kind of model: be quiet, be obedient, be quiet, be gentle. And I don't see that in Guadalupe at all. There's nothing passive about invoking the importance of the dignity of every human being. There's nothing about being quiet to go tell the bishop to build a house here for the poor and the marginalized.
Torres: So the version of Guadalupe is a very specific apparition of the Virgin Mary that is specific to Mexico.
Evans: Let's go back 500 years. Our Lady of Guadalupe first appeared near the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan, which is now Mexico City. At that time, the region was in the midst of a cataclysmic event: the Spanish Conquest of the Americas, which would ultimately wipe out 90% of the population, including much of the Aztec Empire, one the most advanced, colorful and innovative cultures in world history.
Rodriguez: Well, you have to begin with the Conquest. The Conquest was in 1521. The Spaniards arrived in the Americas. No, conquest is good conquest, but this conquest in particular was brutal. Not only because they destroyed everything, they killed people, they dismembered people, they destroyed temples, they raped women. The worst part was to tell a people who were super religious, they were very spiritually oriented, that the god that they believed in was not a god. Or that they didn't have souls or things like, it was devastating to them, devastating to them.
Evans: Our story begins just 10 years after the Spanish arrived in Mexico, with a 52-year-old Aztec man who had recently converted to Christianity. On one December walk to Sunday school, he's surprised by a vision of the Virgin Mary.
Torres: And the story goes is that she appeared to this Indigenous man with the Christianized name of Juan Diego on the hillside of Tepeyac, which is now currently Mexico City.
Rodriguez: He heard music. He saw birds of different colors. And he even asked himself, am I dreaming? And she says, I want you to go to the bishop and tell him that I want you to build me a little casita, a little house here.
Evans: And this place where she wants the bishop to build a house? Jeanette points out that it's on the outskirts. It's not meant for the rich Spanish colonists who have overtaken the cities. It's meant for the people on the margins.
Rodriguez: And she says, quote, "and in this home, I will show forth my love, my compassion, my help and my defense to you, to all the inhabitants of this land, to all of you who call upon me, trust me and love me." She doesn't say, say the rosary, doesn't say, go to church, go to mass.
Evans: That's another important point about Our Lady of Guadalupe for Jeanette. She is radically accepting and compassionate. You don't have to earn her love with grand gestures.
Rodriguez: What are the conditions? Not that you're rich or poor, or green or white or pink. If you love me, if you call out to me, I will hear your pains and I will hear your sorrows, and I will hear your lamentations. So he says, I'm just a poor person. The bishop's not going to believe me. And so she goes, don't worry. Come back tomorrow. I'm going to give you a sign.
Evans: But when Juan Diego returns home, he finds his uncle sick. Smallpox and other diseases brought by the Spanish were ravaging the Indigenous population at the time. And Juan Diego suddenly realizes he must run for help. He has to put Mary's quest on hold. And he tries to avoid the hill where he first saw her, but Mary finds him anyway.
Rodriguez: And of course she stops him. Juanito, Juan Dieguito, where are you going, my son? And he falls to his knees. He goes, I'm really sorry. I'm going to do what you asked me to do, but my uncle is sick. I need to go get him a priest. And she says, don't worry about that. Your uncle's fine. This is the first miracle of the Americas, no?
Evans: So with his uncle miraculously healed, Juan Diego goes to the bishop with Mary's message. Naturally, the bishop doesn't believe him.
Rodriguez: So Juan Diego comes back and she asks him to go up the hill and to get these roses. Now remember, it's December, right? Roses don't bloom in December, right? And yet he found rosas de Castilla, Castilian roses. So he brings it down to her, she arranges it in his tilma and tells him to take it to the bishop and to tell the bishop everything that he's seen. So he's thinking it's going to be the roses, the roses are the symbol.
Evans: But unbeknownst to Juan Diego, he is carrying something even more powerful than out-of-season flowers. He returns to the bishop, with his tilma, his overcoat, full of roses ready to make a dramatic reveal.
Torres: And so the story goes is that he unfurled his garment and instead of it just being the roses, it was this impression of the Virgin of Guadalupe on the garment.
Evans: The bishop built that casita, which later became a basilica where what is claimed to be Juan Diego's actual garment is still on display today.
[Music]
Evans: From a religious perspective, the story can be read as one of Mary's miraculous power. From a more skeptical angle, it can look like a tool of colonial propaganda aimed at convincing more Aztecs like Juan Diego to convert. But after decades of study, Jeanette sees something deeper and more nuanced in the story.
Rodriguez: What often gets left out is the message and the significance of the message. And the message is about restoring the dignity of the Indigenous people dominated by the Conquest. The message has not changed. The challenge for us for today is to restore the dignity of those crushed by sustained oppression and injustice in whatever form it takes.
Evans: So the essential meaning stays even when the situation is flipped upside down. Afterall, Our Lady of Guadalupe later became a rallying cry to overthrow the same Spanish regime that had just conquered Mexico at the time of her appearance. So the image evolves to meet the moment. That's part of what makes her so fascinating to Ariana, and made her want to curate this exhibit.
Torres: I think that she's kind of been reclaimed since the beginning. I think reclamation is really what has built her. She's been reclaimed to be against Spain, to be the symbol of Mexican identity. And then she's been reclaimed to, I think, in a way, reject even a more broader Mexican nationalist identity — to be like, this is a very personal symbol to me and it has nothing to do with maybe even just being Mexican. And I think it's really interesting how, I say more recently, but maybe recent is the past 100 years, how she has been reclaimed as a feminist figure with a lot of people.
Evans: And San Diego has been one of the most important places where Guadalupe's image has continued to evolve. Ariana's seen it firsthand.
Torres: I was born and raised in San Diego, and actually my elementary school is actually called Our Lady of Guadalupe Church. It's in Logan Heights, Barrio Logan. And so from the first moments I could talk, I was just immediately introduced to her image. I think when I started really understanding that she was more than a religious figure was seeing her on people's cars or the tattoos, and then that evolved when I went to college and then started getting to know contemporary artists that incorporated her image, like Yolanda López. Like other famous Chicana artists who were readapting her image. Being a little more punk rock by turning the image on its head or maybe making connections to ancestral gods like Tonantzin or Coatlicue, and really, she does have colonial roots and at one point was used as an imposing figure over the Indigenous population, but we're going to reclaim her and make her our own.
Rodríguez-Biezunski: Exactly.
Torres: Which is really cool.
Rodríguez-Biezunski: Yes. I love that.
Evans: The revolutionary artist Yolanda López was born in San Diego and grew up in Barrio Logan. As an art student at UCSD in the 1970s, she dreamed up a new and highly influential version of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Yolanda passed away in 2021. A year before her death, she spoke with the Las Maestras Center at UC Santa Barbara about her use of Our Lady of Guadalupe in her art.
Yolanda López: The Guadalupe pieces, which I did in 1978, was all pure research. Nobody was talking about Guadalupe at that time, except as a sacred Roman Catholic icon and a Mexican icon because they saw her simply as we all know, as the Virgin Mary.
Evans: Yolanda took that icon and looked at it through the lens of feminism. In 1978, she painted three iconic Guadalupe works, each with the familiar pink dress and starry cape. But the woman herself? She was different. In one, she's running in track shoes, a smile on her face.
López: The woman running as Guadalupe, she's got the cloak pulled back from her. She's got it clinging onto there and she's moving. She's going for it. That to me is sort of like, they're both self-possessed and there's a kind of an inner life to them. And I think that's a real gift of feminism at the time, especially looking at the representation of women in particular.
Evans: In another, the Virgin is sewing the very garment she's known for, her expression focused and intense. And in the third, she appears as an elderly grandmother. It was radical, especially for the time.
López: At that time when I did the Guadalupes, it was highly offensive. What are you doing hiking up her dress? What are you doing putting her at a sewing machine like my mother? And what are you doing with her as an old woman? Cause we don't see the Guadalupe as an old woman. In fact, when I first showed the work, I had to, I was told that I had to have bodyguards. But the context was quite different. So now that has been written about within scholarly terms as a feminist icon where at the original point, I was going to hell and there are people who still think I will go to hell indeed.
Evans: My favorite Yolanda López work is a related series of staged self-portrait photographs, called Tableaux Vivant. In these, Yolanda stands in front of the painted Guadalupe halo, clutching a handful of paintbrushes, wearing her shiny blue UCSD running shorts. Yolanda's joyfully disruptive work took courage. And it had an impact on both Ariana and Claudia.
Torres: Yeah, I think that Yolanda's work is really powerful and interesting also because of how just familiar that she makes it. She doesn't really explore her as this divine figure. She makes her a very everyday woman, showing that her grandmother can be the Virgencita, her mother, herself — she is the Virgencita.
Rodríguez-Biezunski: Yes.
Torres: Which I think is really powerful.
Rodríguez-Biezunski: Yeah, I agree with that. Yeah. She has the costurera, which is a woman that is sewing, which is really cool because I feel like sewing is part of every immigrant's story. And so when I saw that, and everyone and their mom has sent me that image. They're like, look, it's you. And so I'm like, oh my god, which is really cool. And I love it because like you said, it is really highlighting everyday women and it's basically like I am her, she is I, and also holding yourself at those standards. And so I feel like that collection is so beautiful and very representative of everyday women.
Evans: Many pieces at the "Fashioning an Icon" exhibit feel like a continuation of Yolanda's vision. There's Claudia's punk rock jacket; local photographer Arianna Ystelle has a series that shows Guadalupe in tattoos, murals and even hairstyles and nail art; and there's a piece by local piñata artist Diana Benavídez titled "Even Guadalupe Needs a Break." It's a beautiful recreation of Guadalupe's blue-green starry cape made from traditional piñata material — crepe paper and plastic — but draped over a coat rack as if she's finally calling it a night.
Torres: "Even Guadalupe Needs a Break" is really that moment at the end of the day for the Virgin of Guadalupe where she takes off her cloak, puts it on a cloak stand, to just have a moment of rest after a really long day of miracles and appearances around San Diego. I mean, talk about en cada rincón. She's been in every corner and now she's tired, she needs some rest at the end of the day. And I think it's a very empowering, small, quiet act in just thinking about like, OK, she does deserve a moment of rest. She doesn't need to be productive at all hours. She can kind of just be herself.
Evans: There's another featured work inspired by the exhibition that explores Guadalupe's Indigenous roots. It's a commemorative tote bag available in the gift shop by local designer and muralist Josue Baltezar. Like many of these other works of art we've talked about, it's an Our Lady of Guadalupe image with a twist.
Josue Baltezar: If you look at it, it doesn't quite look like the Virgen de Guadalupe that you are accustomed to seeing. There is a double-headed snake and the halo that the Virgen de Guadalupe has, that looks kind of like agave, is present just in the top part but it doesn't go all the way throughout like it does in the original Virgen de Guadalupe. And what you see instead are nopales and what you also see is some corn, some maize, and so those are taken from a mixture of Tonantzin, which in Nahuatl is our revered mother, nuestra madre venerada. And also Coatlicue, which is, those are two deities in pre-Hispanic Mexico.
Evans: Many scholars over the years have pointed out the connections between Our Lady of Guadalupe and Aztec earth mother goddesses, Tonantzin or Coatlicue. First, they share a location. Tonantzin was venerated on Tepeyac Hill, the very place the Virgin appeared to Juan Diego. Second, Our Lady of Guadalupe has a black ribbon around her waist, which signifies that she is pregnant. That is rare for a depiction of Mary. Tonantzin and Coatlicue were strongly associated with motherhood.
Baltezar: So what I read about Tonantzin, which was she was a very revered figure who is a deity for fertility, a deity to represent the Earth. And, again, things growing, and so the Spanish used Tonantzin, used Coatlicue, used a lot of things that pre-Hispanic cultures already looked up to and they said, hey, this is basically a similar thing to help bring people over to Catholicism. I have a lot of family who are Catholics, and I don't think there's anything wrong with anything like that but I do feel like a lot of Mexican culture is forgotten through religion. But I do want to highlight things that, hopefully, are able to come back.
Evans: From Juan Diego to Mexican revolutionaries, from Yolanda López to Claudia and Ariana and everyone who wears a Guadalupe shirt or emblazons her on a low-rider, Our Lady of Guadalupe has reverberated through the ages. And now Claudia's fuzzy, comforting, punk-ish and bold jacket is part of that lineage. It's now immortalized and part of the Mingei's permanent collection — Claudia's first piece to be acquired by a museum.
Every year, millions of people journey to the site where Juan Diego's tilma was first revealed to visit the relic at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe. For many, the tilma itself is a miracle. Some believe the cloth has defied science — remaining intact for centuries — and that the image is supernaturally painted. But you don't need to believe in divine intervention to understand that this picture is a miracle in its own way, the source of an incredible chain reaction of art, inspiration, resistance and strength.
So Guadalupe's legend keeps growing. Claudia says her daughter even has la Virgencita on her skateboard.
Rodríguez-Biezunski: And so always growing up with that, right? Where it's like, wow, this is an image that I could really gravitate towards. And so empowering because during the time that I was growing up, there wasn't a lot of representation, but the representation that we did have was this image. It was her. My grandma and my mom are two amazing, resilient, powerful women that I look up to, and then we have her.
[Music]
Evans: A special thanks to Mingei International Museum, Ariana Torres, Claudia Rodríguez-Biezunski, Jeanette Rodriguez, Josue Baltezar and the Las Maestras Center for their help with this episode.
[Theme Music]
Evans: Thanks so much for listening. If you enjoyed the show, please leave us a rating on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. It really helps new listeners discover the show. And best of all, if you can think of anyone in your life that might like The Finest, please share it with them.
Next week on The Finest, we're talking Tiny Desk Concerts. We'll break down some of our favorite local entries into the 2025 NPR Tiny Desk Contest, and we'll hear from those local artists about their songs — which we loved — and their dreams of breaking through to the big time.
The Finest is a production of KPBS Public Media. I'm your host, Julia Dixon Evans. Our producer is Anthony Wallace, who also composed the score. Our audio engineer is Ben Redlawsk, and our editor is Chrissy Nguyen.
This transcript has been edited for clarity and conciseness.