3.4 A reflection: function of religiousness in the hispanic community  (Page 3/4)

The Virgin of Guadalupe deserves mention aside; she is an affective and harmonizing center to the utmost because she is considered Queen and Universal Mediator, and where all the conflicts and problems find aid and understanding:

1. She is the Mother of the Lord and also our Mother. That is why she protects us and intervenes for us. That is her mission.
2. But the Virgin of Guadalupe is Mexican, racially mixed, with dark complexion and Indian characteristics. She represents poor and humble Mexico. She appears to Juan Diego, who is a “nobody,” but not for the conquistadores. In the oldest narration of the Guadalupanan appearances translated from the Náhuatl, it is told that when Juan Diego cries out because they do not believe him be messenger of the Virgin he says:

Thus I request earnestly Lady and Girl of Mine, that to some main people, well-known, respected and considered, you order to believe in your message, because I am a little man, I am a cord, I am a stairway of boards, I am tail, I am leaf, I am minute, and You, Girl of mine, smallest of my daughters, Lady, you send me to a place I do not walk nor stop. Forgive me for causing great sorrow to you and falling into your anger, Lady and Owner of mine.

But Juan Diego continues to be the one in charge of going to the White man –bishops and missionaries— to demand the construction of a chapel where she may be venerated. In his robe the image of the Lady with Indian clothes and symbols is imprinted. It was the indigenous Juan Diego, not a White man, who presented a Mother to a race that was half-destroyed partly by Aztec royalty, and partly by the sweeping violence of the conquistadors.

It was Juan Diego, not the White man, who presented an unblemished, Virgin Mother who assumes all contradictions of the Indian-Hispanic cultural process. She is ours; the Mexicans’. She symbolizes a new racially mixed reality, harmonizes two very different cultures, while putting herself on the side the poor, squashed, conquered Indian. She continues lead this race, indicating to them that although they encounter and integrate into other cultures, they must not lose the essence of their identity. For me, the great miracle of the Guadalupana is not that her image remains in the robe of Juan Diego, but the intensity with which it is recorded in the heart of every Mexican wherever he or she is.

Some similarities and many differences to the situation in spain

A slogan that made me laugh whenever I came for vacations reflects the Spanish way of being and thinking: "Spain is different." I would say now "we were different" because we lived in a world of "virginal purity" in which we did not have any occasion to be racist. In talking with people of my surroundings, we mostly agreed on principles and values: personal dignity, equal opportunity, love and respect for all. But one day I asked "Would you marry one of your children to a gypsy?” “I would rather die," some answered to me.

There is no doubt that in the last decades Spaniards have progressed in our openness toward others of different cultures. But, I think that with migration they are beginning a long-lasting process, whose birth toward a construction of a new civilization is based on the mixing of races, intercultural encounters, and the plural coexistence that this supposes. It will be a very laborious birth, difficult and full of pain and tears.