The people of San José de Tateposco still tell of the day their patron saint wandered through the village. Some said they saw him in the fields, others glimpsed him barefoot among the mezquites, his robe shining green in the sun. “Suddenly, he disappeared and went back to his temple,” recalled Alejandra Preciado during a recent community gathering. Such stories, handed down for generations, are now finding their way into print.
They are part of San Pedro Tlaquepaque: Cuéntame tu Historia, a new book that gathers oral histories, legends, and memories from across the municipality’s nine historic pueblos. In villages now largely subsumed into the Guadalajara metropolitan area, neighbors came together through a series of talleres de crónicas barriales – neighborhood chronicle workshops – to put their stories on paper. The result is a collective portrait of Tlaquepaque’s communities that might otherwise have been lost to time.
One of the oldest pueblos
Tateposco’s turn to present its chapter came this month in its central plaza, framed by the town’s centuries-old temple dedicated to San José. “It is one of the oldest pueblos of San Pedro Tlaquepaque,” said community representative Pascuala Hernández. The church itself, she noted, is one of the oldest in the city.
Within its walls rests the town’s most treasured image: San José, carved of an ancient piece of wood from an ahuehuete tree.
"It is said that a group of wandering indigenous people arrived and left a wooden box, which contained the statue," explained Preciado, who wrote the chapter on myths and extraordinary events. “It was brought to the church in Tateposco, and every so often it appears in the village.”
Women’s voices and village memory
For local writer and community historian Rocío Durán, who coordinated the Tateposco workshop, the project was a chance to give voice to stories often left untold. “I was very interested in rescuing the memory of the women,” she said. At the presentation, that commitment came full circle. Several of the community’s oldest women — in their 90s, resplendent in brightly colored traditional dress — were seated in the front row. One by one they were honored with flowers, in recognition of the lives they had lived and the memories they had shared.
Among them was Doña Ramona López Lara, remembered as a potter whose hands shaped clay long after age had bent her back, a living link to Tateposco’s artisan past. Neighbors recalled her teaching younger generations the skills she had learned as a girl, passing on not only a craft but a way of life. In honoring women like Doña Ramona, Durán said, the project ensures that the quiet labor of memory-keepers will not be forgotten.
Myths that live on
The Tateposco chapter brims with extraordinary tales that blur the line between faith and folklore. Beyond the opening story of San José wandering through fields and disappearing among the mezquites, residents have documented multiple encounters with their patron saint across the decades.
In 1939, Don Leonicio Pajarito and his son Pedro met a mysterious barefoot man with snow-white feet while heading to clean their peanut crops. Dressed in pristine green clothing, he greeted them with a simple "hola" before vanishing into the mesquite groves. They knew it was San José el Viejo. When Pedro later fell gravely ill, he recovered after just two days—a miracle the family attributed to the saint's intercession.
The chroniclers also preserved the mystery of the "Canto del Alabado," a midnight funeral song that carries an otherworldly power. "When it was sung, something extraordinary would happen," the witnesses recalled. Dogs would bark into the darkness, candle flames would dance without any wind, and then, suddenly, everything would return to an uneasy peace. The elders warn that if you want to sing it yourself, wait until midnight—and make sure there's a deceased person present.
On the old Camino Real, now marked by its distinctive eucalyptus trees, the phantom carriages still roll. In 2015, two young brothers on a motorcycle heard what generations before them had reported: the unmistakable sounds of wooden wheels and dragging chains at three in the morning. They remembered the old paradox their grandparents had taught them: "When you hear a carriage nearby, it's far away; when you hear it far away, it's nearby." Racing to escape, they had to brake hard when a man in a straw hat and cotton work clothes appeared in their path—only to vanish like those before him, leaving them alone on the ancient road that once connected New Galicia to New Spain.
Preserving the pastorela
At the Tateposco presentation, a group of children appeared in round pink-faced masks and costumes, recalling the village’s beloved pastorela, the annual pageant that has filled the plaza with music, drama, and communal meals for generations. The pastorela is more than a holiday tradition; for many, it is the beating heart of the pueblo’s identity.
“The pastorela is the biggest thing we have… eight days of songs and meals for the entire village,” recalled Father José Álvarez Franco — better known as Padre Patillas, the village’s long-serving, controversial priest. In the 1990s, he and parishioners clashed with both Church and political authorities who, he says, sought to suppress the festival and even close the historic temple. “The Church wanted to take that tradition away… so the people, and the Father, opposed them and didn’t let it happen,” said María de Jesús Fernández Damián, Padre Patillas’ assistant.
For Patillas, the lesson is simple: “Here, the people are the ones in charge.” That defiance, and the preservation of the pastorela, underscore what the Cuéntame tu Historia project set out to capture — a record not only of legends and devotions, but of the community’s ongoing struggle to defend its memory and autonomy.
A communal archive
Tateposco’s presentation was just one stop in a series of nine, each dedicated to one of Tlaquepaque’s historic pueblos. Coordinated by the municipality’s 24 honorary chroniclers with support from the Programa de Apoyo a las Culturas Municipales y Comunitarias (PACMIC), the project represents months of workshops, interviews, and collective writing.
Durán explained that the book is the product of collaboration among neighbors, many of whom had never written formally before. Guided by the cronistas, participants wove memories into short narratives, creating what she calls “a form of collective writing.”
As the formal program ended, elders and younger residents lingered in the plaza, sharing cups of homemade horchata and plates of fresh elote piled high with cream and cheese. Groups stood chatting under the darkening sky, some still turning over the stories they had just heard. It was easy to imagine that, like the tales captured in the book, the conversations unfolding over food would themselves become part of the community’s living memory.
The broader purpose of Cuéntame tu Historia is precisely that: to safeguard the voices of a people whose stories might otherwise fade. “Each story, each memory, each word is a bridge between the past and the future,” Durán said.
In an age when urban expansion threatens to erase the distinct identities of Guadalajara’s surrounding pueblos, San Pedro Tlaquepaque: Cuéntame tu Historia stands as a collective act of preservation. It is both a testament to the resilience of local culture and an invitation for future generations to listen.
To obtain a copy of the limited edition, send a WhatsApp message to Rocío Durán at 33 2615 1117.
Tracy L. Barnett is a freelance journalist living in Guadalajara. She is the founder of The Esperanza Project, a green magazine covering the Americas.