She became especially popular among the poor, and she also came to be associated with other marginalized groups such as migrants, sex workers, criminals, and people of the LGBT community.

[1] Her mother died shortly afterward, and Colonia was forced to raise her younger siblings, including her half-siblings after her father remarried.

Colonia fell severely ill and was taken to the hospital on 19 December 1940,[3] and she died in Lima[4] the following day.

[5] The location where Colonia was buried was designated with a wooden cross, causing it to become a gathering point for people grieving those without grave markers.

[6] The shrine is made of concrete blocks,[7] and it features a tomb, an image of Colonia, and a place for lighting prayer candles.

[12] Colonia's grave was popularized as a place of worship for marginalized groups who were treated poorly in churches.

[16] In 1994, police foiled a bank robbery plot by apprehending the culprits when they visited Colonia's shrine to pray for success.

[19] By the 21st century, Colonia's image was more widely accepted in Lima, and her status as a folk saint was institutionalized into the city's culture.

[11] Her following remained steady in the early decades of the 21st century, still producing thousands of adherents during festivals but not growing in number.

[26] In 1999, Colonia's brother wrote a biography with the stated purpose of correcting falsehoods that had been spread about her life.

[28] The crime procedural show Gamboa featured an episode in the 1980s in which a cult of thieves devoted to Sarita Colonia is infiltrated by the police.

A large painting of her was created in 1980 by the artist group E. P. S. Huayco [es] on a canvas of 12,000 empty tin cans, which were placed on a hill frequented by migrants in Lima.

This mural was painted on the side of a railway embankment, on the border of an ethnically diverse neighborhood in the city.