Our Lady of Guadalupe is celebrated in many Catholic parishes across Southern California. Her feast day, Dec. 12, marks the appearance of Mary to St. Juan Diego, an Indigenous man, near Mexico City in 1531. But in recent years, Los Angeles artists and academics have chronicled street art depicting the iconic Guadalupe image as a way of paying homage to the Latino culture, faith, and traditions of L.A.'s quickly gentrifying neighborhoods. Artwork depicting the brown-skinned virgin and patron saint of Mexico grace the walls of laundromats, liquor stores, mini markets, churches, bakeries, taquerias and tire shops. One academic says illustrating her is a way of saying, “Our people are present here."