In Mexican culture, Dia de los Muertos is a time when the dead can cross into the living and visit their loved ones. My family and I have only recently started celebrating Dia de los Muertos. It started after my grandma’s brother died. That year was the first year we created an ofrenda and posted his picture on the wall. As the years went by, we have had to add some more pictures, our altar growing bigger as we began to call more people home for that one precious day.
Despite its connection to death and its obvious ties to loss, Dia de los Muertos is not meant to be a sad event, and it is not celebrated as such. This is a vibrant celebration mixed with music, colorful banners, and delicious food, all for people to call their departed loved ones home for one more night. People will dress up and dance and decorate their ofrendas with their loved ones’ favorite things.
This celebration of death and thus a celebration of the life lived and the love cultivated, is often tied to La Catrina. The figure of La Catrina is often the basis of the colorful and patterned skull makeup that many men and women dawn on the day of the dead. She represents the balance and mixture of life and death. Often decorated in colorful flowers such as marigolds and roses, La Catrina is a figure of death in everlasting life, roaming among the living.
My father grew up on a ranch in Tepatitlan, Mexico. We can only visit the ranch and his hometown about once every other year. But each time we go, we leave with a bit of his home in forms of handmade sweaters, dresses, and boots. On the Day of the Dead, to help connect with my culture and connect with my family, I like to wear clothes that remind me of my heritage, such as boots made in my father’s hometown of Tepatitlan, and a dress from Guadalajara.
Wearing these clothes and putting on La Catrina makeup draws me closer to my family, my culture and my loved ones who are no longer physically here. The fashion that accompanies la Dia de los Muertos is one of the ways I have to express pride in my culture and love for my family.
