Dia de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, is a joyous holiday filled with color, celebration, and food where deceased friends and family are remembered. It is a deeply personal holiday that is individual to each family that celebrates. The diversity of the types of celebrations reflect the diversity of those who celebrate. Families in America may celebrate privately, creating an ofrenda and remembering passed loved ones through stories told around the dinner table, while other families may turn towards community and celebrate by attending parades and going to the cemetery where their loved ones are buried- a common practice most often seen in Mexico.
Dia de los Muertos is a holiday made personal by the very nature that remembering is a deeply personal act. What holds these celebrations together, though, is the common theme of remembrance.
As a child, my family did not celebrate Dia de los Muertos, as is often the case with immigrant families who wish to assimilate as seamlessly as possible. We traded our traditions for those more commonly seen and dressed up for Halloween each year, only seeing Dia de los Muertos reflected in the Hispanic grocery stores we frequented where sugar skulls lined the counters behind the cashiers. When I asked my mother what they were, she told me they were only candy. I asked for one and my mother obliged. I tried to eat it, my mother ignoring that they were more decorative art to be placed on an ofrenda than a treat for a child to be gnawing at.
As time passed and our family grew older, more of us began to pass. This prompted my mother to begin to create ofrendas each year, something she had never done when I was younger. On it are pictures of each person (and pet) that my mother wishes to never forget, as well as marigolds swapped out when they wilt for fresh flowers, candles, skulls and skeletons, and bright orange tablecloths.
On the night of November 1, Dia de los Muertos, my mother will place food on the ofrenda, an assortment of each person’s favorite dish placed lovingly next to their picture. She’ll crack open the bottles of Coca-Cola next to my great-grandfather’s picture and place homemade peanut butter cookies next to a picture of the family dog from years before. That night, the spirits of those in the pictures will follow the light of her candles and snack on the foods they enjoyed in life. They’ll remember us.