the virgin of flames

the virgin was important to the people here. not only as a symbol of the adopted religion of Catholicism, but because she was a brown virgin who appeared to a brown saint, Juan Diego. She was also a symbol of justice, of a political spirituality. He had watched every year the procession to her, her effigy carried high through the streets of East L.A. starting from the corner of Cesar Chavez, held up, aloft, like a torch. That procession had been an annual event from the thirties, Iggy told him... The Virgin appeared here often, to reassure her people no doubt. In the Winchell's Donut Shop on Fourth and Soto, hovering in the window for the longest time, transforming the local treat into the most sought after cure for every ailment and malaise... Rumors of these apparitions spread by word of mouth and fast. The news was wrapped in Big Macs and passed over counters, it filled buckets of K.F.C., was whispered in the hush of washing machines in the Laundromat, passed out on the street between passersby and even between the dealers and their clients.

--The Virgin of Flames, by Chris Abani