Our Lady of Guadalupe @ Mexican cafe, Williamsburg

Mexican immigrants in New York City believe that Mexicans and Mexico are “the Chosen Ones” to bring the message of Christ to the city. The root of this conviction lays in the belief that the Virgin Mary, the Virgin of Guadalupe, appeared to a poor indigenous man named Juan Diego. By this appearance the Virgin Mary showed the elitist Spaniard conquerors that the ordinary people of Mexico were their equal before God and even had a special spiritual destiny. Today, many Mexican immigrants in New York City call themselves by the nickname “guadalupanos.”

This messianic story is especially deeply rooted in the traditional ways of thinking among the Mixteca, who make up the majority of the Mexican Americans in the city. Mixteca is a dry, empty place a few hundred miles south of Mexico City encompassing parts of the Mexican states of Puebla, Oaxaca and Guerrerro. Mixteca usually speak Spanish though there is a concentration in Staten Island that speak only the dialect Mixteca.

The Mexican Mixteca story is one of the results of an Annie E. Casey Foundation study of church and ministry incorporation of new immigrants in twenty cities entitled: Glorious Pilgrimage: Immigrants and Faith-Based Organizations. 

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York has based their outreach to the Mixteca partly on this messianic sense that especially the Mixteca, but also Mexicans in general and the nation of Mexico are specially loved by God and have a great destiny. The belief in their role as a redeemer people helps them put up with the insults, indignities and dangers of being immigrants. They are humble to be sure, but also see themselves as equal to anyone in the eyes of God.

The Mexican redeemer consciousness is similar to Americans’ sense that the United States was founded as the city on a hill shining the light of Christ and freedom to the world. Both the Mexican and American redeemer narratives originate in the ministry and teachings of Christ and the expectation articulated vividly in the Book of Revelation, that Christ will return to rescue His people and display the way of salvation form troubles and disaster. Is it any wonder that a majority of Mexicans in New York City believe that Jesus Christ will return in our lifetime? This expectation is a significant meeting ground for American born Christians and Mexican, particularly Mixteca, immigrants.

 

Origins of Mexican immigrants to NYC

Juan, who was the shift manager of New York Bagels on 36th Avenue in Dutchkill, Queens, came from Puebla 19 years ago because of his uncle, who lives in the Bronx. His cousins who moved to Staten Island and northern New Jersey came here because their father was here. In his Mexican New York (2005) Robert C. Smith explains some of the features of the current Mexican American immigration. One reason their father is here can be traced back sixty-seven years.

When Fermin and Pedro Simon hitched a ride in Mexico City with a vacationing Italian-American New Yorker in 1942, they had no idea that they were creating the Mexican immigrant community of New York. They had just heard that the Norte Americanos needed workers for the shipbuilding war effort.

The Simons were from Mixteca, and in  chain of migration going back to the Simons, most Mexican immigrants in the city are from Mixteca, particularly southern Puebla, from where the Simons came. The Mixteca Baja includes the southernmost part of the state of Puebla, the northern most part of the state of Oaxaca and the easternmost part of the state of Guererro.

The current wave of Mixtecos started pouring into the city in the 1980s when Mexico experienced a depression. In the mid-1990s, this region provided 64% of the Mexican immigrants to New York, of which 47% came from the state of Puebla alone.  Around 2010, Mixteca migrants from Ciudad Nezahualioyotl on the outskirts of Mexico City started coming to New York City.

Many Mixtecos plan on returning to Mexico as soon as they have earned enough money. However, as more gain legal residence, they stay and bring more Mixtecos legally to NYC.

Most often, Mixtecos and other Mexicans come as villagers and maintain their village relations in the city. Indeed, almost half of some communities are living as villages in New York, complete with phone conference calls for village councils. This situation encourages them to return to Mexico and their continued adherence to conservative Catholicism.

An example of this process is the Mexican immigrants from the villages of Ticuani in Puebla. By 2010, their population is about equally split between Puebla and Brooklyn. With inexpensive telecommunications and airfares, they live simultaneously in both communities. They live in a virtual village in which all important communal business is debated during weekly conference calls between elders in Brooklyn and Mexico. Their vacations are planned to coincide with their village festivals to help them to maintain their Ticuani identity, as do intense team volleyball rivalries with other immigrant associations.

The Ticuani Solidarity Committee in New York City has financed extensive modernization of their pueblo, which has included building two new schools and renovating the Catholic Church and municipal buildings.

 

The Number of Mexicans and Mexican Americans in New York City

There about 359,979 Mexicans and Mexican Americans in New York City, and moving upward to 5% of our 8 million population. This is a several hundred thousands increase from the 1990s. As I look over the luncheon invoices from our census takers, I notice that they are eating at more Mexican places than ever before. The reports are that the food is pleasant to the eye, fresh, based on fine original recipes and served with real friendliness. We have even interviewed a few new Mexican restaurant owners who also are leaders in their churches.

 

Journey Data Center

 

The 2012-2016 American Community Survey (ACS) of the U.S. Census counted 339,603 New Yorkers whose ancestry is Mexico. The U.S. Census has been paying much more attention to accurately counting the immigrants and the undocumented. Still, the PEW Research Center  estimates that in 2012 the ACS and the U.S. Current Population Survey undercounted immigrants by 2-3% and undercounted unauthorized immigrants by 5-7%. So, we adjusted the ACS total number of New Yorkers with a Mexican ancestry upward to 359,979. We have not adjusted the numbers for each borough or community, however.

 

 Destination of Mexican immigrants

New York does not yet have a Mexican barrio. Mexicans have tended to settle into Hispanic neighborhoods, but keep a profile low because they are illegals or have illegal roommates. Also, they are young and unsettled, unless their families are with them.

However, significant concentrations of Mexican immigrants are present in various parts of the city (see our chart). Furthermore, Mexicans have displaced Puerto Ricans as the most numerous group in East Harlem.

 

Our Lady of Guadalupe featured in Metropolitan Museum of Art’s “Painted in Mexico” exhibit

 

The Virgin of Guadalupe first became a special guardian (patron) of Mexico City following a devastating epidemic in the valley of Mexico. Jose de Ibarra (1685-1756) painted Our Lady floating over the Valley of Mexico in 1739.

 

 

In 1754 the pope officially became a sponsor of Our Lady of Guadalupe. An unknown artist painted this “Allegory of the Patronage of the Virgin of Guadalupe over New Spain, 1781.” The painting cites Psalm 147:20: “”He [God] has not done the like for any other nation.”

Journey report: Mexican immigrants in the Bronx celebrate Our Lady of Guadalupe

Podcast on Our Lady of Guadalupe by Franciscan Media

The statue from Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn was seated as one of the special Saints during the mass of Pope Francis at Madison Square Garden on September 25, 2015:

[constantcontactapi formid=”2″]

[20100526_1447]