MoCo Celebrates Dia de los Muertos

Dia de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, is a widely celebrated religious holiday honoring the dead celebrated on Nov. 1 and 2 throughout Mexico each year. Mexican families set up altars at their homes or at grave sites to honor those dear to them who have passed away. Many congregate at cemeteries to bring their relatives food, drink and music. It is believed that on the holiday, the spirits of dead relatives return to their homes for the night to visit their loved ones.

The roots of Day of the Dead go back around 3,000 years to rituals honoring the dead in Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica. The Aztecs, a Mesoamerican civilization that flourished in central Mexico from the 12th to 14th centuries, saw death as an integral, ever-present part of life that should be celebrated. During Day of the Dead, it’s believed that the border between the spirit and physical world dissolves. According to the tradition, the souls of the dead awaken to return to the physical world to feast, drink, dance and play music with their loved ones. In return, the living leave favorite foods and offerings at grave sites, or altars.

Deeply embedded in Mexican culture, the celebration has traveled with Mexican migrants to their new homes. This is especially apparent in the U.S., where around 37.2 million Mexican-Americans, often called Chicanos, reside. For centuries, a large number of Chicanos have been determined to maintain ties to their country of origin, partially through the celebration of Dia de los Muertos with Mexican family and friends. 

For Amelia Muñoz, a junior at Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School, these traditions still remain a very vibrant part of family traditions, even if they’ve changed with time. “We start [by] making an ofrenda, or an offering, a few weeks before,” she said. “Back when we lived in Texas, we had a perfect spot in the wall just for it. We’d put up pictures of our family and things they enjoyed, like little pictures of music or food they liked,” Muñoz described. 

When her family moved from Austin to Washington, D.C, they were able to find a community through neighbors that shared their tradition. “They make a giant ofrenda for everyone,” she said. “Everyone brings pictures of their family and pieces of food to celebrate each other’s families.”

Photo of an ofrenda courtesy of Creative Commons.

Despite this, Muñoz wishes there was a stronger sense of the holiday and its celebration in the D.C. area. “In Austin, there’s a huge parade. I wish there was a parade in D.C. that people would organize,” she said. “It’s just really fun.” 

In contrast, D.C. has fewer large-scale celebrations, and many families instead mark the holiday with small gatherings. The difference highlights how regional culture shapes how traditions are shared.

“Some people think it’s a version of ‘Mexican Halloween’, which isn’t true,” she said in relation to the American holiday that precedes it. For Muñoz, like many others, Dia de los Muertos seems to be more about connection to family and to culture. Due to their closeness in time, Day of the Dead celebrations often seem to get overshadowed by the massive Halloween festivities that often can span across multiple days. “I get that in the U.S., they don’t celebrate it, so it’s OK. I found a way to celebrate both.”

The balance between understanding the culture in other countries while also maintaining one’s culture is something many Mexican-Americans share. This is especially true for those who, like Mercedes Vargas-Lugo, a Montgomery County resident and journalist for Al Jazeera, have seen the holiday evolve over time. 

Vargas-Lugo came to the U.S. from Mexico as a teenager and remembers Dia de los Muertos as a holiday that surrounded her even though she and her family didn’t fully partake in it. “In Mexican culture, there’s a sense that death is less definite,” she commented. “There’s less fear of it.”

Though her family doesn’t regularly build an altar for Dia de los Muertos, she says the season always brings back a strong sense of remembrance for her. “We have these images of the catrinas, these elegant skeletons that represent death. We have this sort of laughter at death that’s less serious than in other cultures. We talk about death in a more approachable way than in other countries,” Vargas-Lugo said. “We’d eat pan de muerto, it’s a very specific type of bread that we cook and eat at around this time.” Though she and her family wouldn’t partake in the full typical celebration, they would often go and visit the cemeteries and bring flowers to deceased loved ones. 

Photo of a pan de muerto courtesy of Creative Commons.

When she was a journalist in Mexico, Vargas-Lugo once spent a night in a cemetery reporting on traditional Dia de los Muertos celebrations outside Mexico City. “It was really beautiful,” she recalled. “Back then, it wasn’t as popular. It was all very different. Now it’s celebrated everywhere and people really enjoy it.” 

Vargas-Lugo finds joy in seeing the celebration’s growing recognition in the U.S., and appreciates how movies like Coco have brought the holiday’s meaning and imagery to a much wider audience. Still, she notices how it often gets overshadowed by Halloween. “In the U.S., it’s definitely overshadowed. Halloween has been celebrated for a very long time,” she said. “It’s fun and brings people together. Dia de los Muertos is more about celebrating death in a different way, celebrating what people enjoyed in life. However, it’s a cultural difference.” 

For both Mexican-American women, the heart of the celebration of Dia de los Muertos lies in memory of lost loved ones and togetherness, whether it be through neighborhood ofrendas or in quiet conversations held at home. Different Mexican-American families in Montgomery County who celebrate the holiday have their own, unique ways of doing so. The traditions may take different forms, but the meaning still remains the same: to celebrate, but not mourn, those that came before us.

Written by Gabriela Ugaz

Photos courtesy of Creative Commons