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Mexican Lives, Mexican Rituals: The Virgin of Guadalupe from New York City to Puebla, Mexico

I am interested in showing how people who cross between two cultures maintain ties with their homeland, and in conveying what it is like for those who have stayed behind. Growing up in California, I felt the Mexican presence in daily life.

Since moving to New York City, I have seen a wave of immigration from Puebla fill this city. I began photographing prayer, rituals and processions at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church on 14th Street in Manhattan. The Virgin of Guadalupe is a dark-skinned goddess who combines elements of the indigenous Aztec goddess Tonantzin with the Spanish Catholic Virgin Mary. She is the guardian mother of all Mexicans who are indigenous, mestizo and Spanish. On the Virgin of Guadalupe's feast day, December 12th, the most celebrated holiday, Mexicans, Mexican-Americans and Latinos who have come to this country for a new life give thanks to a dark-skinned goddess. She is a symbol of hope and identity for a people who pray silently all night, and then express their joy during the dawn “mañanitas””, a dawn celebration accompanied by a mariachi band.

On the Mexican side, I traveled to Atlixco, Puebla, a city like so many others in the Mixtec region of Mexico that sends migrants to New York. Young children, women and elder people remain. From Atlixco, I followed a pilgrimage by caravan from Atlixco to the Basilica of Mexico City to record the original journey in honor the Virgin of Guadalupe. Hikers, cyclists and buses travel hundreds of miles to reach the shrine and to bless the Virgin, as they ask for protection and pray. People walk on foot with the icon strapped to their pack to have it blessed at the Basilica in Mexico City.

The people I photograph in New York cherish family, places left behind and rich cultural traditions celebrated in the old ways in a Mexico that is far beyond the border of the United States. And I still return to see the rituals in their place of origin. I often work in the darkness, blurring the difference between here and there.