'Guadalupe is about mission, about something to be built'

For a recent conference on Our Lady of Guadalupe, the University of Notre Dame commissioned paintings of Our Lady of Guadalupe's appearances in 1531.

The paintings, on special exhibit at the university's Snite Museum, are on amatl, a paper first made by the Olmecs from the inner bark of mulberry and fig trees as early as 1500 B.C.

Artist Esperanza Gama drew on her memory of the concrete world of scents, colors and fresh flowers surrounding the Virgin's small altars in the local markets of her native Guadalajara to lead to spiritual and mystical worlds.

She dedicated the paintings "to all immigrants, alive or dead, who work under the light of sun and moon and pray for new lives and opportunities."

At the same time, the Snite Museum had an exhibition titled "Faces Seen, Hearts Unknown: The Landscape of Mexican Migration." The images, wrote exhibit curator Amelia Malagamba-Anstegui from Arizona State University, "explore the struggles and visions of the migrants, as well as their spiritual traditions."

The exhibits, participants and presentations at the conference on Guadalupe, sponsored by Notre Dame's Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism and the Institute for Latino Studies, provided a portrait of migration far richer than the prejudicial one in the media today.

There is a long tradition, encouraged by U.S. law and policy, for Mexicans to come to the United States to study, live and work for a time or to settle. The keynote speaker at the conference, Mexican novelist Carlos Fuentes, has been Robert F. Kennedy Professor of Latin American Studies at Harvard University since 1987.

Gama, an artist since childhood, studied in Mexico, Europe and China and exhibited in France, Mexico and the United States before coming here 10 years ago as a tourist, where she said she "married for love" and thus acquired her documents. She said she finds it easier to live and work in Chicago.

Maria Amparo Escandon, another immigrant from Mexico and author of the best-selling novel "Esperanza's Box of Saints" and of the screenplay for the international award-winning film "Santitos," spoke on "Guadalupe: The Virgin in the Backpack." Now living and working in Los Angeles, she writes novels and teaches fiction writing at UCLA. Her grandfather graduated from Notre Dame with a degree in engineering.

While many immigrants enter legally, many are not. Holy Cross Father Daniel Groody, director of the Center for Latino Spirituality and Culture at Notre Dame, worked many years with undocumented farm workers in California's Coachella Valley. In his book "Border of Death, Valley of Life: An Immigrant Journey of Heart and Spirit" (published in 2002), he describes their Calvary and their deep spirituality, rooted not only in Guadalupe but also in Pre-Columbian religion.

The conference speakers --- artists, theologians, anthropologists and historians from universities such as Harvard, Georgetown, the University of California, Notre Dame and many more --- enriched the knowledge of the heart of Our Lady of Guadalupe, whose feast day is celebrated Dec. 12. The conference, attended by 400, fulfilled a long-held dream of Timothy Matovina, director of the Cushwa Center, and Father Virgil Elizondo, internationally renowned scholar on Our Lady of Guadalupe, who synthesized as follows:

"Guadalupe is not a theory, not a tranquilizer, not an ideology, not even a theology. Guadalupe is about mission, about something to be built. Our Lady asks for a home, a temple for all her children --- all the inhabitants of these lands."

Moises Sandoval is a former editor of Maryknoll magazine and founding editor of Revista Maryknoll.