Angelina Vigil display's La Reina's crown. (Source: via Facebook)
A small-town festival queen had her crown and scepter taken away from her. Again.
Angelina Vigil was dethroned as La Reina de la Fiesta (“Queen of the Festival”) in Española because of an online post in which she came down hard on the town of 10,000 people in northern New Mexico.
Vigil’s problems began last week, when her mother’s house was broken into and the crown and scepter that have been used by La Reina since 1969 were stolen out of her bedroom.
Although the items were recovered in a couple of days, the 24-year-old took to Facebook to complain, beginning her post, “I seriously hate coming to this effin’ town.” (The post has since been deleted.)
Vigil went on to detail the robbery, how the burglars left every drawer and cabinet open and dumped clothing on the floor before taking off with flat-screen TVs and other electronics as well as the crown and scepter.
“My guess as to why this happened is because I was crowned and I represent the valley,” Vigil later told the Santa Fe New Mexican.
The community, which was focused on finding the items, suddenly turned on the queen and the Fiesta Council took action.
“The Executive Council of the Fiesta Council has motioned to dismiss the 2015 La Reina de Española, Angelina Vigil,” the Española Valley Fiesta council posted on its Facebook page on Saturday, 20 minutes before midnight. “There will be no Reina for this year.”
Vigil, however, said the post was blown out of context.
“I meant [to say] I hate what goes on here,” she said, “not that I hate all the people in Española.”
At a Fiesta Council meeting on Friday night, according to the Albuquerque Journal, Vigil gave a tear-filled apology for the post, saying, “What was said was out of feelings of hurt by the actions of a few people.”
“This however doesn’t define me,” she wrote a couple of days later on Facebook, “[nor defines] the heart I have for my loved ones and the people where I’m from.”
The Española Valley Fiesta, a tradition that began in 1933 as a way of commemorating the arrival in the region of the Spanish conquistador Juan de Oñate, will be held July 9 to 12 this year. It is slowly dwindling though – apart from Vigil there was only one other contestant, who dropped out before the competition started in May.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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