If you see more Mexicans roaming around the streets than usual on Dec. 12, fear not-the Reconquista hasn't been completed (yet). It's merely the feast day of the Virgin of Guadalupe, the patron saint of Mexico and the Pope-approved Empress of the Americas. Tradition has it that true believers mark the day by celebrating “Las Mañanitas” (“The Little Mornings”), an early-morning Mass meant to commemorate when a vision of the Virgin appeared to an indigenous peasant shortly after the Conquest. Most of the Latino-dominant Catholic churches in Orange County will celebrate such a Mass (not so the whiter Catholic parishes, which have always treated Guadalupe's feast day as a Mexican thing-never mind she's the patron saint of the Orange diocese), and the best one is usually at St. Boniface in Anaheim. Here, you can see Aztec dancers and lively mariachis-and feast on tamales and hot chocolate after Mass.
Wed., Dec. 12, 5 a.m., 2007
