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This week Beat Latino goes to Mexico to celebrate one of the nations’s most important holidays! There, as well as  all over cities in the U.S.A. with large Mexican populations, December 12 is a day to celebrate the virgin that is the Patron of the Mexico and the Americas, the Virgin of Guadalupe, a celebration that actually begins at 12:01 on Dec. 11 with the singing of the classic birthday song, and continues through the night.

Nobel laureaute poet and essayist Octavio Paz once said that at this point, Mexicans really only believe in the Virgin of Guadalupe and the National Lottery. Paz is referring to the profound cultural – often not even religious – devotion of Mexico for this figure that may have be related to the pre-Colombian female deity known as Tonantzín, so Beat Latino in her honor plays a few  pre-Colombian tunes for good measure. Enjoy!

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