‘La Llorona’ movie promotion with Mexican healers draws fire

ACuranderismo is the art of using traditional healing methods like herbs and plants to treat various ailments. Long practiced in Native American villages of Mexico and other parts of Latin America, curanderos also are found in New Mexico, south Texas, Arizona and California.

Anthropologists believe curanderismo remained popular among poor Latinos because they didn’t have access to health care. But they say the field is gaining traction among those who seek to use alternative medicine.

A limpia is something performed for those suffering from trauma like sexual abuse, Sesma said. “It’s not supposed to protect you from being scared at the movies.” University of New Mexico professor Eliseo “Cheo” Torres, who hosts an annual conference in Albuquerque on curanderismo, said the tale of La Llorona has nothing to do with curanderos, even if there are curanderos in the film. “I don’t see the connection and this probably will be offensive to those practicing traditional healing,” Torres said. “Whoever put this promotion together likely has no idea what they are doing.”

Andrew Chesnut, the Bishop Walter F. Sullivan Chair in Catholic Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University and a scholar who has studied spiritual practices in Mexico, called the movie promotion “reprehensible” and harmful.

“It will only serve to further stigmatize curanderismo as something to be feared” since it’s associated with a scary movie, Chesnut said. “That’s dangerous, especially because of the climate that Mexican immigrants face right now.”

LBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — A promotion around the movie “The Curse of La Llorona” using traditional Mexican healers for “spiritual cleansings” before screenings of the horror film is drawing strong criticism from healers and scholars who say the stunts are offensive and demeaning.