Because... "[Our Lady of Guadalupe] embodies, in her mestizo complexion, the races (indigenous and Spanish) that gave rise to Mexican identity—races that, at first, could not tolerate, neither one nor the other, the new people that had been born orphan in the same land: the mestizo people.

"[She] synthesizes the two people that gave rise to the Latin-American nations… Mary of Guadalupe, not entirely through her own merit but through the merit of the One whose heart beats in her womb, gives also to this mixed people… her compassionate gaze, her shadow and her shelter." -