Jeanette Rodriguez
Our Lady of Guadalupe: Faith and Empowerment among Mexican-American Women
Austin: University of Texas Press, 1994. Pp. 227. $35.00 $13.95
Reviewed by Mirta A. González

This volume is the result of the author’s research while living in a Mexican-American community in California. The study centers on the perceptions that Mexican-American women have of Our Lady of Guadalupe. The author states that she included psychosocial, religious, and developmental considerations in studying the importance of Our Lady of Guadalupe among Mexican-American women. In order to facilitate our reading, the author gives an overview of each chapter, allowing the reader a glimpse of what will be presented.

Highlighting the importance of the two parent cultures of Mexican-Ameri­cans, the indigenous and the mestizo, Rodriguez in the first chapter revisits the historical conquest of Mexico, establishing similarities and differences between Aztec women and their contemporary Mexican-American counterparts. Though both had to stay at home, the author points out that Aztec women could hold property, enter into contracts, take cases to court, and also divorce their husbands. Among the differences encountered is their perception of death. While the Aztecs believed in eternal life without sanctions, the Spaniards saw death as an eternal rest with reward or punishment. For the author, “the most profound aspect of the conquest was the spiritual devastation of the Aztec people” (13). She concludes that the indigenous and mestizo women are the most oppressed of all.

Chapter 2 studies the Guadalupe cult, which, according to the author, is based on a document known as the Nican Mopohua (“Here it is told”), written in Nahuatl first and then in Spanish. The author shows the relationship between the adoration of the image of Our Lady and the deities adored by the indigenous people in the past. Today, the icon of Our Lady of Guadalupe serves to bring together disparate groups who otherwise would never know one another.

Chapter 3 develops two psychosocial and religious aspects and functions as a link between sixteenth-century Catholicism and the Aztec religion. The religious aspect refers to the popularity of the cult of Guadalupe, The Dark Madonna. The following chapter deals with the maintenance of a cultural heritage that includes language, customs, and ways of perceiving the world and acting in it, and shows the relationship between the degradation experienced by Aztec women and the similar experience of Mexican-American women. The author tells us that, just as the Aztec women did, Mexican-American women must learn the ways of a dominant culture. For both groups the oppression of a physical colonization is accompanied by the oppression brought about by a psychological colonization. According to the author, the degradation of Mexican and Mexican-American women is in part due to the story of Malinche (the Indian princess who became Cortes’s mistress and betrayed her people). The powerful social control under which the Chicana finds herself is perhaps the greatest obstacle to her breaking away from a traditional role. Though Mexican-American women are seen as the strong and enduring backbone of the culture, they are also portrayed as passive, masochistic, and self-sacrificing. The author warns us that to speak of the Chicana as a homogenous group is misleading since her cultural roots lie in Mexico, which is itself a pluralistic country with distinct groups.

In Chapter 5 the author presents the methodology used in her study and her research findings. First she examines the influence of the symbol of Our Lady of Guadalupe on a particular group of Mexican-American women. The criteria used in the selection of the women in the sample include their being (1) Mexican-Americans; (2) Roman Catholic, with Our Lady of Guadalupe as part of their religious experience; (3) English-speaking and acculturated into North American society; and (4) young, married mothers. Rodriguez used what she calls a “Demographic Questionnaire to identify the social, cultural, and economic status of the women in the sample.” The questionnaire was grouped into four sections: socioeconomic status; participation in cultural and religious organizations; most important religious holidays, symbols, and beliefs; and highest-ranked religious and cultural holidays. The author found that Mexican-American women have the ability to acculturate and endure.

Chapter 6 studies the following six interrogatives: (1) What is the assumptive world of the Mexican-American women in this study? (2) What factors influence and inform this assumptive world? (3) Who is Our Lady of Guadalupe? (4) How is Our Lady of Guadalupe perceived by the Mexican-American women? (5) What is the nature and content of the relationship between Our Lady of Guadalupe and the sample? and (6) How does this faith experience of Our Lady of Guadalupe affect women’s transcending their assumptive world? The author discovered that for the Mexican-American woman prayer is power. Women who are in contact with their Mexican roots tended to refer to Our Lady as “Our Mother,” but those Mexican-Americans who are acculturated to the point of not speaking Spanish well refer to Our Lady as “the Mother of Jesus” or as “Mary.” The author shows that for both of these groups Our Lady is someone in whom they can confide because she is a consoler, mother, healer, intercessor, and a woman. According to the author, Our Lady gives these women a sense of being and of belonging.

Chapter 7 recognizes the cult as popular religiosity, citing as an example the fact that, for many individuals, visiting the Basilica is more important than attending mass. The women in the sample perceived Our Lady as a maternal presence, offering unconditional love. The author states that these qualities tell us that the word mother is in itself a metaphor for God. It is she, Rodriguez maintains, who at a time when the people of Mexico were spiritually dead because of the Conquest came forth to give life to those that were abandoned by their gods.

The author concludes that for Mexican-American women Our Lady is a role model of strength and an enduring presence who offers new possibilities. This is why Mexican-American women continue to seek her help. Thus, the Guadalupe message of hope, love, and justice is a message of care and “connectedness” to the wider community. That is why this universalization means that Our Lady can be seen as a source of empowerment not only for Mexican-American women, but also for all women.

In several instances this informative book has been a source of enjoyment for this reader, despite the fact that it often belabors the obvious.