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Coatlalopeuh (The Virgin of Guadalupe)
In Mexican folklore, La Llorona (“the crying woman”) is the spirit of a woman who wanders the earth mourning her children—whom she drowned. Some versions of the story assert that her husband cheated on or abandoned her, and others claim that he was a Spaniard and she an Indigenous woman—possibly even La Malinche. Regardless, La Llorona is deeply connected to the stories of conquest, violence, tragedy, and mestizaje at the heart of Mexican identity. She never appears explicitly in Borderlands, but Anzaldúa frequently references her archetype in the background and calls her one of Chicanas’ three mothers (along with La Malinche and the Virgin of Guadalupe).
La Llorona Quotes in Borderlands / La Frontera
The Borderlands / La Frontera quotes below are all either spoken by La Llorona or refer to La Llorona. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Part 1, Section 3: Entering into the Serpent Quotes
La gente Chicana tiene tres madres. All three are mediators: Guadalupe, the virgin mother who has not abandoned us, la Chingada (Malinche), the raped mother whom we have abandoned, and la Llorona, the mother who seeks her lost children and is a combination of the other two.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire Borderlands / La Frontera LitChart as a printable PDF.
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La Llorona Character Timeline in Borderlands / La Frontera
The timeline below shows where the character La Llorona appears in Borderlands / La Frontera. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Part 1, Section 3: Entering into the Serpent
Anzaldúa argues that Chicano people have three mothers: Coatlalopeuh, la Llorona , and la Chingada (Malintzín). The church has used all three to disempower and control...
(full context)
...in white supposedly appears at night in an abandoned church. Some locals think she is la Llorona , but Anzaldúa thinks she’s the Aztec earth goddess Cihuacoatl, who is also said to...
(full context)
Part 2, Section 1: Más antes en los ranchos
...The first of these sections opens with an epigraph from the well-known Mexican song “ La Llorona .”
(full context)
