Festival shares true intent of Latin holiday
Día de los Muertos is ‘such a happy occasion’ as loved ones symbolically return, chair says
Cumbia music echoed off houses in the Old Sixth Ward neighborhood Sunday afternoon as Houstonians celebrated Día de los Muertos.
Outside the Multicultural Education and Counseling through the Arts center, children got sugar skulls painted on their faces under large white tents, vendors sold Frida Kahlo-inspired art and families listened to folk tales about the Latin American holiday.
Despite the October date, neither the holiday nor MECA’s Día de los Muertos Festival: Honoring Our Past, Celebrating Our Future are Halloween events. Día de los Muer- tos is based on the Aztec belief that life didn’t end here, said Consuelo Lara, chairperson of the festival.
“It’s such a happy occasion,” Lara said. “It’s like, symbolically, our loved ones come and spend a day with us.”
The festival is one of the ways MECA helps educate the public about Latin American traditions and customs, Lara said. MECA provides art education, support services, art performances and events to more than 4,000 students and families every year, according to its website.
“Some people absolutely don’t know anything about the true belief of Día de Los Muertos,” Lara said.
The smell of incense wafted
through the halls as festival goers visited altars dedicated to family members who have passed. Each altar has three levels: the top level is devoted to God; the middle level is to remember family; and the third and bottom level is for “ofrendas” or offerings, like the family member’s favorite foods.
Heights resident Luis Gavito decorated the altar for his family with an angel, black and white photos of his parents, grandparents and great grandparents, and featured ofrendas of small desserts.
“It becomes very individualized,” Gavito said.
Retablos, deviotional paintings made as part of Mexican folk art tradition, were displayed on the auditorium walls for the center’s silent auction fundraiser. Retablos depicting the recent deaths of Anthony Bourdain and Aretha Franklin were hung with pieces thanking God for good health, peace and comfort.
Diana Arias, is a first-generation American, brought her family to the festival to introduce the holiday and culture to her 9-year-old daughter, Samantha. As Samantha was waiting to get her face painted, Arias said her daughter’s father died five years ago, and Samantha became interested in the tradition after watching the movie “Coco.”
“She wants to learn exactly how the custom works,” Arias said. “You have a picture of them. You remember the good of them. You remember what they like to do. You remember their favorite foods. You remember their favorite music.”
Cristina Hernández said she was reminded of her grandmother’s favorite foods, too, and how she used to always say “Why are you so pretty?”
“She always asked me that, but only a grandma would say that, right?” she said.
Hernández, who owns Kismet Boutique on Telephone Road in the East End, was selling jewelry, accessories, apparel and gift items. This weekend she sold out of purses in the shape of conchas, a traditional Mexican baked sweet bread with frosting that looks like a shell.
She was supposed to be a vendor at last year’s festival, but a couple of days before the holiday, her grandmother died. Sunday, Hernández said the event was making her think about her grandmother.
“I feel like, in a way, she’s with me when I make sales,” Hernández said. “I feel like she’s telling me ‘You go, girl.’ ”