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The Virgin of Guadalupe is a well-known religious symbol honored throughout the Americas but especially in Mexico. This article focuses on the celebration of the feast of Guadalupe in a village in Sonora, Mexico. The region where the village is located has been developed agriculturally by the Mexican government and is now economically quite modern. The development program has had ethnic ramifications as well: where once two distinct ethnic groups existed there is now a cultural continuum. The Guadalupe fiesta in this case is a forum for the expression of a family's location on this continuum, and a means for socially validating changes in this status. The Guadalupe ceremonies also elicit ethnic allegiances in a community where ethnic cleavages exist but are rarely brought out. Through participating in specific ways in the various ritual dramas of the feast, individuals illustrate this cleavage and then overcome it by avowing the Virgin's protection of all Mexicans without regard to ethnic categories. This case has implications for the theoretical considerations of the relationship between economic change and ethnic identity, as well as for the role of individuals and symbolic expression in the context of social change.