UPDATE May 6, 2020: Hi everyone. Thank you so much to all of you have signed our petition! Caroline Moody heard us loud and clear and has just announced that she will cease the sales of the candles! Art is a powerful storytelling tool and this is a small victory that has succeeded in keeping a truthful narrative of just how our city is handling the COVID19 crisis in the Latinx community.

With that said, our mayor must still be held accountable to providing sufficient testing facilities in Latinx communities and she must stop blocking efforts to financially assist our most vulnerable residents including undocumented families left out of federal relief programs. Mayor Lightfoot can do more. Join the Right to Recovery efforts by to demand a recovery plan for black and brown Chicagoans hardest hit by COVID19.

With love and solidarity,

Vicko A.

We are calling on Caroline Moody and KC Winter to stop selling their offensive and culturally insensitive “Our Lady of Quarantine” Lori Lightfoot prayer candles, and we are calling on Mayor Lightfoot to take real action to protect the hardest hit Chicagoans from COVID-19 by expanding COVID-19 testing in Latinx-majority ZIP codes and supporting badly needed housing relief and cash assistance programs which she has previously spoken against.

Latinx Chicagoans are currently the hardest hit by COVID-19. Data from the State of Illinois shows that Latinx-majority ZIP codes have the most confirmed COVID-19 cases. COVID-19’s devastation in the Latinx community has been made worse by the actions and inaction of Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration - a WBEZ report found that the City of Chicago has failed to provide adequate COVID-19 testing in Chicago’s hardest hit Latinx communities. Additionally, in the middle of a respiratory disease pandemic, Mayor Lightfoot’s administration gave the greenlight to demolishing a 100-year coal plant smoke stack that dumped a ton of toxic dust on Little Village - at least one Latinx resident of Little Village has died as a result. And, Mayor Lightfoot has refused to support important legislation that would provide much needed housing relief and cash assistance to Latinx Chicagoans during this crisis.

Despite this failure on the part of Mayor Lightfoot’s administration to provide relief and support to Chicago’s Latinx families during this pandemic, on May 6, 2020, Block Club Chicago reported that artists Caroline Moody and KC Winter had begun marketing and selling a prayer candle depicting Mayor Lightfoot as “Our Lady of Quarantine.” Block Club Chicago also reported that KC Winter had previously been paid by Mayor Lightfoot’s administration for a COVID-19 awareness campaign. These candles borrow from and are based on religious prayer candles used in Latinx culture, and popularized by Latinxs. This appropriation of Latinx religious iconography and sacred images to celebrate a political leader that has failed the Latinx community is offensive and wrong - we call upon Caroline Moody and KC Winter to cease the production of these candles and to donate the proceeds from the candles already sold to Latinx artists and undocumented Latinx families harmed by COVID-19. We also call upon Mayor Lightfoot to immediately expand COVID-19 testing in majority Latinx ZIP codes, and to support Ald. Matt Martin’s proposals for housing relief, and community organizations’ proposal for city-funded cash assistance to undocumented families - two proposals which would help the Latinx community and which she has publicly opposed.

Mayor Lightfoot is no saint, particularly to the Latinx Chicagoans which she has harmed. Rather than put her on candles that make a mockery of Latinx religious practices we should be calling on Mayor Lightfoot to do right by the Latinx community.