The Divine Savior of the World comes to L.A:

The Catholic Celebration of  La Bajada

By Dr. Jeanette Reedy Solano

 

Diasporic Connnection Via Jesus 

Many Salvadorans had been in LA for more than 20 years by the year 2000 and lamented the fact that their children knew little of the riches of Salvadoran traditions and culture.  Beginning in 1995, several angeleno Salvadorans brainstormed ways in which they could nurture links to El Salvador while furthering their integration in the civic and social life here in the U.S. 

The organizers of SANA (Salvadoran American National Association), while planning their civic celebration of the official “Day of the Salvadoran,” asked themselves what symbol would most resonate with displaced Salvadorans.  The answer was clear:  El Divino Salvador, patron saint of their country.  The figure is housed on the national cathedral in San Salvador.  Each year, La Bajada (the lowering) is commemorated in front of the national cathedral in San Salvador on the Feast of the Transfiguration (the 6^th of August).  The event marks the culmination of the week-long Fiestas Agostinas, a carnivalesque celebration, and is arguably the most important civic-religious celebration in El Salvador. The celebration of La Bajada in the United States has grown dramatically since 1999 and is organized not by the Catholic Church, but SANA, a cultural group who insists La Bajada is a civic-religio-cultural celebration.

 

The Commissioning and Journey of El Divino Salvador

SANA commissioned an exact replica of El Divino Salvador to be made and brought to LA.  The life-size image of Jesus then became a pilgrim himself as he traversed the very path that thousands of Salvadoran immigrants had trod in search of peace and a better life in el norte. Embarking on July 2^nd, 2000, they placed him in the back of a red pick up truck and, amid much fanfare, tears and touches, the image began his to L.A.. 

 

Description of the Celebration

By 2002, “The Day of the Salvadoran” had been declared a state-wide event and the La Bajada was attended by 18,000 people.  The celebration now takes the following general form:  the image goes on pilgrimage to local churches in the weeks before La Bajada, on the morning of the La Bajada there is an early morning Catholic mass after which the image is loaded into a pick-up truck and led by a police escort to Exposition Park.  After a grand entrance and brief blessing by a priest, the day is then filled with a cultural, civic, and finally an ecumenical Christian service.  The emotional and spiritual culmination of the day occurs at sunset with commemoration of La Bajada. 

The ritual involves the lowering of the icon into a giant globe.  While his dark purple robes are removed inside the globe, the raucous crowd grows silent and reflective.  After several minutes, the Jesus figure is slowly lifted out again in glistening white robes (symbolic of the Transfiguration).  A crest of El Salvador is embroidered at the base of his robe.  The faithful spectators burst forth with shouts of “Viva El Salvador!” (with its double meaning) and applause as the figure rises.

Religious leaders at La Bajada often comment of the spiritual significance of the Transfiguration.  I believe the symbolic lowering and transfiguration of the icon is especially powerful for displaced Salvadorans, migrants, whose families are split between two countries, who are struggling to sort out what it means to be a Salvadoran-American, and what it means for their children, U.S. citizens with powers of societal transformation, to never forget their roots.

In 2003, aided by some of my students, I was able to survey 600 attendees about their interpretation of La Bajada as well as a variety of other queries.  I should have the SPSS data back in the Fall of 2003 and plan to publish a peer-reviewed article on the event in 2004. 

 

***Please see Slide Show on La Bajada located on the Home Page***