By Jesús Aguado
Hold on, Guadalupe Reyes is not a person! Nor is there a bridge by that name. What it represents, instead, is a period that encompasses 26 continuous festivals. It starts on December 12, the festival of Guadalupe, and continues through Three Kings Day on January 6. First of all is the celebration of the Virgin of Guadalupe, also known as the Virgin of Tepeyac and Guadalupana.
And yes, fireworks are part of the season, as is loud music that begins at 11pm on December 11, and the singing of las mañanitas to the Virgin of Guadalupe in almost every part of San Miguel or where we can find a shrine dedicated to her like the one in Mercado Ignacio Ramírez. It is a grand celebration, as over and above being Mexicans, Mexicans are Guadalupanos. The Virgin of Guadalupe is the patron saint of taxi drivers, merchants, and workers, just to name a few. You just need to pay attention to the walls of civil buildings, the niches of churches, the aisles of markets, the dashboards of trailer trucks. The Virgin of Guadalupe is everywhere—she is the mother and queen of Mexico.
The Guadalupana in the history of Mexico
The Virgin of Guadalupe is the most beloved Marian manifestation in the nation, so it is no wonder that many private companies give their workers the day off on her birthday (this year it falls on Sunday). Although the government has tried to “stay away” from the church, it has not been able to entirely. That’s probably because, as Monsignor Luis Felipe García, of the Basilica of Guadalupe, once told Atencion, “He who is born in Mexico is by default a Guadalupano.”
The image of the Virgin of Guadalupe was used as an emblem in the struggle for Independence, which began at dawn on September 16, 1810. It happened when Miguel Hidalgo appropriated a canvas painting of the Virgin of Guadalupe as he was passing through Atotonilco. There is also the double flag of the regiment of the Queen’s Dragoons, which was raised that September 16 in the town of San Miguel el Grande (today Allende). The flag is also called the double flag of Ignacio Allende. On one side is the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe crowned as the sworn patron of New Spain, and on the other side is the image of the Mexican eagle perched on a cactus and the Archangel Saint Michael. The flags, says historian Graciela Cruz, were snatched from the insurgents in the battle of Calderón Bridge in 1811, where the Independence movement suffered its greatest defeat in the first stage of the insurrection by the Royalist Army led by Félix María Calleja. The general appropriated the flags and sent them to King Fernando VII in 1814 as war trophies. Up until a few years ago they were part of the collection of the Army Museum in Spain. In May 2010, during the bicentennial celebration, Spain returned them to Mexico—one as a gift, the other as a loan.
The image of the Guadalupana was used a hundred years later by Emiliano Zapata during the Mexican Revolution. The Reform laws of Benito Juárez of 1857 created a constitutional separation of church and state, and all church assets were confiscated. According to Monsignor Luis Felipe García, Juárez was a devotee of the Virgin. In 1999, then-candidate for the presidency of the Republic of Mexico Vicente Fox used an image of the Virgin of Guadalupe in his closing campaign. On December 1, 2000, prior to taking office as president, he went to the Basilica of Guadalupe and prayed there together with his family. He did the same on the last day of his term in 2006.
