Why are new generations returning to using ancient healing methods?

EDINBURG, Texas — Chriselda Hernández heard a knock on her door in the border city of Edinburg. She was a college student suffering from a streak of bad luck. A drunk driver had crashed into her car. Then someone stole her laptop. “I need a clean one,” she pleaded.

Hernández approached an altar in his living room that had an image of the Virgin of Guadalupe. He mixed a mixture of sage and palo santo, a wood endemic to South America, and lit it with a match. He then turned to the young woman and passed the healing smoke over her body.

“You're holding on to something,” Hernandez whispered. “Let go. There is no shame”.

For generations, Hispanic communities along the U.S.-Mexico border have turned to curanderas, like Hernández, often seen in the popular imagination as old women with candles and religious icons operating in the shadows of society from shacks.

But the ancient art has entered the age of Instagram. More and more young people are adopting rituals they learned from their grandmothers and deploying them against the problems of the 21st century. They clean public beaches, exchange recipes online to block “envious energies” and sell handmade candles with the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe in stores. Their clients are usually college educated.

“I think it is an honor to be a healer; It is something very beautiful, but also very limiting,” said Hernández, 42 years old. “I feel like we are breaking those limits, that healers are just herbs and old ladies.”

A popular healing culture preceded the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors to Latin America and Mexico. Over time, healers began to combine indigenous rituals with elements of Catholicism and influences from Asian and African folk traditions.

The practice has taken hold in Texas' Rio Grande Valley, a stone's throw from the Mexican border, largely out of necessity. Hidalgo County, home to a majority Hispanic population, has one of the highest rates in the United States of people without health insurance, and many people depend on curanderas for lack of other affordable options, said Servando Z. Hinojosa, professor of anthropology at the University. of the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. He said many Hispanic residents also tend to distrust the medical establishment. This is particularly true when it comes to mental health.

Curanderismo has become so accepted in the Rio Grande Valley that it is not unusual to see street signs and television advertisements advertising curandero services.

Sasha García, 39, is a healer known for her fiery red hair.

In northern Mexico, where indigenous culture is not as widespread and the control of the Catholic Church is stronger, García said, his ancestors often operated in the shadows to avoid the stigma associated with folk healers. In contrast, on the U.S. side of the border, not only does she feel freer to practice openly, but some Catholic priests visit her for advice, she said.

García receives his clients at La Casa de la Santísima Yerbería in the city of Pharr. He has embraced touches of modernity along with the old ways, including consultations that he now offers via FaceTime.

On a recent afternoon, Jocelyn Acevedo, 27, who operates a credit repair service, arrived for her monthly cleaning. After her first cleanup, she said, she saw her business begin to prosper.

García instructed Acevedo to rub three coconuts all over his body. Garcia then smashed them on the floor to release what she said was the negative energy her client had been carrying.

“Did it work?” Acevedo said. “Of course”.

By: EDGAR SANDOVAL