Consciously or not, San Fernando's Guadalupe rituals counteracted the hostility and rejection that parishioners often met in the wider church and society. As one devotee remarked in acclaiming Guadalupe's compassion for the poor and downtrodden: "Because the Virgin is Indian and brown-skinned and wanted to be born in the asperity of [Juan Diego's] rough cloak -- just like Christ wanted to be born in the humility of a stable -- she is identified with a suffering, mocked, deceived, victimized people." Another enthusiast wrote that "la morenita" was nothing less than a symbol of our race and contended that "if it had been a Virgin with blue eyes and blonde hair that appeared to Juan Diego, it is possible that she would have received a fervent devotion, but never as intense, as intimate, nor as trusting as that which the multitudes offer at the feet of the miraculous Gudalupita."

The primary basis of Guadalupan devotion for many Mexican-descent residents was their steadfast conviction that Guadalupe "continues to perform miracles." Their fervent appeals for Guadalupe's celestial aid led local clergy to denounce some forms of devotion as superstitious, such as the praying of forty-six rosaries for the forty-six stars on Our Lady of Guadalupe's mantle. Nonetheless, advertisements in local Spanish-language newspapers appealed to devotees' strong faith in Guadalupe as a protectress and healer. One ad for "Te Guadalupano Purgante" (Guadalupe Purgative Tea) described Guadalupe as the "queen of the infirmed," extolling the powers of this tea made from the "herbs, flowers, tree bark, seeds [and] leaves... that grow in the environs of Tepeyac, where Our Lady of Guadalupe appeared."

Guadalupan devotion at San Fernando was far more than an expression of Marian devotion. It encompassed patriotism and political protest, divine retribution and convenant renewal, ethnic solidarity and the resistance of a victimized people, spiritual reconquest and reinforcement of social hierarchy, a model of feminine virginity and domesticity and an inspiration for women to be active in the public arena and demand equality, a plea for miraculous intervention and an inducement for greater participation in the church's sacramental life. Despite attempts to engage Guadalupan devotion as a justification for existing social relations, at San Fernando Guadalupe commemorations also provided a ritual arena for Mexicans and Mexican Americans to forge and celebrate an alternative world, one in which painful realities like exile and racism could be redefined and reimagined.

A brown-skinned "exile" herself, Guadalupe was a treasured companion whose faithful encountered her most intensely in the midst of the displacement, discrimination, degradation and other difficulties they endured. Fortified by her presence, these faithful confronted their plight by symbolically proclaiming in Guadalupan devotion that exiles were the "true" Mexicans, that despised Mexican-descent residents were a chosen people, and that devotees of "la morenita" were heirs to the dignity she personified.