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The first Día de los Muertos I remember was in 2001.
My little brother had just passed away and I asked my abuelita why a picture of him sat on her fireplace mantel, surrounded by portraits of much older family members, some I had never met.
“Because he’s here with us, and we’re celebrating,” she said.
Around the collection of photos, she placed family members’ favorite snacks. Next to my brother, I remember clearly, sat a tube of colorful hard candies, shaped like fruits with a sour taste that made my mouth water.
I was 5 years old and used to gobbling up all of the candy I could get my hands on. This one, though, I knew was for my 2-year-old little brother. Even if he wasn’t here to enjoy it, even if the rare genetic disease that had tormented him in life wouldn’t allow him to enjoy all the sweets the world had to offer.
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For the rest of my life, whether at my abuelos’ home or at my own, my family would always build a Día de los Muertos ofrenda — an altar — a few days ahead of the holiday. At the center of our family altars, you could always find my little brother, with his cherubic face, thick curls and a smile that I still can see when I close my eyes.
In Mexico, on Nov. 1 we celebrate children who died at a young age — that was, specifically, Mauricito’s day. Nov. 2 we celebrate all of our dead.
Let me emphasize the word “celebration”: That’s what Día de los Muertos is. While mourning and joy are not two emotions that, inherently, fit together, on Día de los Muertos we party with our dead. We tell them how much we miss them while we play their favorite songs, while we prepare the meal they loved in life, while we remember all the bad jokes they made, and the great adventures they went on.
Día de los Muertos is such a fete that we even dress “Death” up and let her join us. She often comes in the shape of a Catrina — a well dressed skeleton, decked in bright, colorful skirts and a wide-brim hat. She reminds us that death is always with us, but isn’t always terrifying.
Throughout the years, more faces were added to the altars. My abuelita — who so lovingly shopped at the tianguis for calaveritas and flores de cempasuchil — joined the altar in 2008. Heartbroken, my mother silently placed her portrait next to my brother’s. As we lit the candles, we whispered a prayer and thanked them for being with us, in life and in the after.
When I moved to United States in 2014, I brought the tradition with me, even if it meant a small altar on a little corner of my college dorm room. Every year, I pour out a little tequila for my abuelos, I buy a tube of M&M’s for my brother. I place them next to a pan de muerto, say a little prayer, thank them for being with me, in life and in the after.
The bread — pillowy-soft on the inside, and coated in crunchy sugar and baked to look like bones — is one the essential elements of the holiday. Most panes de muerto are infused with orange zest and star anise. As the name suggests, this is the bread we offer our dead.
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In the years since, I’ve introduced my American friends to this tradition. On one specifically cold evening in Chicago, I remember trekking to Pilsen — a predominantly Hispanic neighborhood, where year-round you can find everything from piñatas, to paletas, to my favorite kind of chile chipotle — to find a sugary pan de muerto. It was worth it.
But it’s weird for me now, eight years into my life in the United States, to see how Day of the Dead is becoming another “Hallmark Holiday.” Catrinas and calaveras — the sugary skulls, decorated with bright colors — now sit next to pumpkins and ghosts at the party supply store.
I’ve walked through Targets and Walmarts and spotted products described as “sugar skull decorating kits.” I’ve seen Alebrijes — creatures Mexicans believe guide our dead to the afterlife — sold on Etsy. There’s a Day of the Dead Barbie.
The other day, I even found calavera-shaped Peeps.
The truth is, I fear that my favorite tradition — this celebration of life in death — could become another “Cinco de Mayo,” losing its homegrown significance. (Cinco de Mayo is not Mexico’s independence day. It’s a holiday primarily for those in Puebla, marking the day they defeated the French.)
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Like me, Hector Carrillo is a Mexican immigrant living in the United States and grew up celebrating Día de los Muertos with his family. Carrillo, a professor of sociology at Northwestern University who specializes in migration and transnationalism, told me that, “with the commercialization of the practice,” some of the meaning behind the tradition is “at risk of getting lost.”
There are symbolic and spiritual aspects of Día de los Muertos that should be preserved, Carrillo says. But, he says, an American embrace of the holiday could increase awareness of the country’s racial and cultural diversity.
“The fact that more people celebrate Día de Muertos, that more people have access to the cultural iconography of Día de Muertos in the U.S. more generally, that could contribute to an increase in cultural sensitivity of Latinx culture,” he said. “So, in many ways, it’s a bit of a mixed bag.”
Carrillo compared it to how many Americans celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, a holiday that is now core to U.S. identity but has lost some of its original meaning. Still, it has “remained very significant” to the community where it originated.
Besides, he says, some families in Mexico have long infused traditional Day of the Dead celebrations with America’s Halloween traditions. Back home, children dress up and go around their neighborhoods asking for a “calaverita,” a combination of the classic American trick-or-treating tradition, combined with the Día de los Muertos practice of gathering treats for our loved ones.
“I see this as part of a of a complicated cultural-sociological process, by which cultural practices travel across transnational borders,” Carrillo said.
I hope that, through education, by sharing our stories, even through movies like “Coco” — which helped introduce the concept of Día de los Muertos to a worldwide audience — the true meaning of this celebration will be preserved.
For us Mexicans, death is not the end. Death is a continuation of life. Death is something we mourn, yes, but it is also something we celebrate. We embrace it. Día de los Muertos not only makes it easier to cope with the reality that your loved one is physically not here anymore — to hold your hand or tug your hair or tell you that everything is going to be okay — this remembrance of death also makes it easier to see that they lived a life worth celebrating, a life of impact and worth remembering, no matter if that life lasted 96 years, or 68 — or 2.
As Carrillo explained it, Day of the Dead is a celebration of life.
It’s been a difficult almost-three-years of a pandemic. We’ve all lost so much. So I invite you to build an altar, an ofrenda, in your home this year, for those who have left us, those who inspired us and loved us and challenged us and believed in us. Those whose memories make this life worth living.
Get that special treat your loved one adored, sit it next to a calaverita, pour their favorite drink, catch them up on your life.
Feel their presence, even for a few minutes. They’re still here, with us.
That’s what Día de los Muertos is all about.
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