Juan Diego
Saint Juan Diego is the patron of indigenous peoples because of the role God gave him at the very birth of the Mexican Church: a poor Aztec convert, it was to him — not to a bishop or a Spaniard — that the Virgin Mary chose to appear at Tepeyac in 1531, speaking his own Nahuatl tongue and calling herself their mother. When the bishop demanded proof, the Lady filled his rough tilma with roses, and upon it appeared the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, dark-skinned like the people, which still hangs in her basilica. That miracle drew millions of natives to the faith and made Juan Diego their natural intercessor; the first indigenous saint of the Americas, he is fittingly honored as a heavenly patron of Mexico.
Saint Juan Diego was an indigenous Mexican convert to whom the Virgin Mary appeared on the hill of Tepeyac near Mexico City in December 1531. The miraculous image of Our Lady of Guadalupe appeared on his tilma (cloak), which is preserved to this day in the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe. He was the first indigenous American to be canonized.
