Have you ever heard of the legend of La Lorrona? Well if you haven’t, it’s an ancient tale that has been traced back to 1509. It started as a local story, “A Weeping woman, Wailing and crying out in a loud voice: “My children, we must flee far away from this city!” (1) She cried and sobbed, because out of pure disdain and rage she murdered one of her children. After this fact she soon felt instant regret and would never forgive herself for this. This once local story soon became a Countrywide phenomenon that was told from generation to generation. Many Latinos such as me have been told this story as a child and if anyone reading this can relate to me, these types of stories were the ones to keep you under the covers during the night. But not to worry, I am here to put your worries to rest. Today I will be debunking the infamous story of La Lorrona! My first argument against this myth is that: the story is usually only used to strike fear into a child and use that fear to enforce social norms on them. This I have experienced myself as when I was a child my mother told me this story, “Listen Alex, When I was a child there were several disappearances in my small town, and the reason for this was… They didn’t eat their food. It’s said that the children who don’t eat their soup seem like easy prey to the ghost of La Lorrona who wants to snatch up little kids!” Now as an eight year old this story sent chills down my spine and I started eating as fast as I could. This is just one of almost infinite stories that adults tell children for them to be “good.” There are a myriad of different variations of this tall tale. This leads me to my next point: “There are too many of them!” There are copious amounts of ways that this story has been told differently and the fact that this is a problem easily takes away any believability left of this story. Usually when something is true and set in stone it only really has a couple different ways it could be told since it is true and did happen. One other big reason she can’t be real is that in every single website or article you read about her, she is described as a “Myth” or a “Legend.” An example of this is from this article written and published on Britannica, (2) “The legend of La Llorona is a popular ghost story” It is told as a ghost story and legend, nothing mentions anything about it being a true tale. The last point I’m going to make to convince you is that there is no physical evidence or proof that the legend of the crying woman is real. Most acclaimed photos of the woman have always been proved to be either photoshopped or just straight up fake. The fact that in about 500 years there has been no way of proving she exists is pretty evident to the fact that she isn’t real.
In the end it is simple in the fact that this story isn’t true. It is just a sham that is told by our parents to scare us into doing what they want.
Alex Reyes – UChicago Lab – DMSF Class of 2028
Image by John BEARBY on Unsplash