Page 58 - Catholic Extension Magazine Winter 2019

PART III
He Took the Form of a Slave

But you, LORD, do not stay far off; my strength, come quickly to help me.
Psalm 22, 20

Tú vales. binational cultural reality. We live in a worker displaced by free trade, she
state of in-betweenness, neither here says ‘tú vales’. To the border agent
46. Year after year, after fall winds nor there, ni de aquí ni de allá. The who envisioned giving your life in
bring cooler weather into our desert weight of a violent history, gross na- service to a just cause but now strug-
valley, the ground beneath us in El tionalisms, politics, walls, passports, gle in confusion, and to your family,
Paso literally begins to hum in the the global economy and the legacy she says ‘tú vales’. To the family with
evenings. Throughout the land, dan- of race compete to define our peo- mixed immigration status, she says,
zantes and matachines are rehears- ple, to define us. To make our people ‘ustedes valen.’ To the millennial who
ing their ritual dance in preparation feel like foreigners in a foreign land. left family and culture and tradition in
for the explosion of rhythm, chant, Truly we are suffering from a heart search of success and the American
theatre, light and color that will take sickness ‘that says we are able to be dream but now feel empty inside,
place on the 12th of December. It is only one or the other’. she says ‘tú vales’. To those at home
the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. in neither English or Spanish or who
The origins of devotion to Our Lady 49. The dehumanization of Indig- feel awkward at not knowing enough
of Guadalupe are veiled in mystery. enous and Blacks, and the dis- of either, she says ‘ustedes valen.’ To
But to generation after generation placement of the American Indian the family that bears the weight of
she reveals the solidarity and close- meant that these communities were intergenerational trauma expressed
ness of God. deprived of the narratives, land and in depression, abuse and divorce,
religious traditions that gave their she says ‘ustedes valen’.
Why do they dance? life consistency and meaning. New
racialized narratives for self-under- 52. Her simple message persuades
47. Perhaps like nowhere else, the standing were forced upon them and us, as it did that day on Tepeyac, that
people of our border community they were forced to see themselves she is the God-bearer, Theotokos.
identify with Our Lady of Guadalupe. through the eyes of their masters. In Only a woman such as this young,
She is in shopping malls, restau- order words, tú no vales. But no one brown, mestiza empress, born on the
rants, Ubers, hair salons and family has the right to impose that type of edges of empire and who revealed
altares. There is a beautiful Virgin in identity. herself anew on the edges of empire,
the Chamizal special to the women could have convinced our people of
there who lost their manufacturing 50. Against that dehumanization, as the nearness and tenderness of God.
jobs, whom they lovingly call Nuestra once she said to San Juan Diego, She who shares in our in-between-
Señora de los Desplazados, Our Lady who represented a people dehuman- ness. She is the Mestiza, who takes
of the Displaced. ized and disenfranchised, Guadalupe what is noble from each culture,
says to our people today, ‘you count’, elevates it and points out new ways
48. Despite everything others tell us, tú vales. towards reconciliation. She takes on
we in the borderlands know that this our people’s pain and trauma and
valley between the Sierra Madre and 51. To the refugee turned away at she transforms it to give birth to
the Rocky Mountains is home to one the border, she says ‘tú vales’. To the hope and redemption.