- A festival in Allentown's Arts Park Sunday celebrated the Dia de los Muertos holiday
- The holiday, which falls on November 1 and 2, is when departed loved ones are said to return to earth
- Attendees and organizers said that, despite the name, the holiday is about celebrating life, not death
ALLENTOWN, Pa. – Allentown’s festival celebrating Dia de los Muertos in the city’s Arts Park Sunday honored not only the holiday, but also the city’s Mexican and broader Hispanic communities.
Despite the cold and rainy weather, scores of people — mostly families with children — had gathered for the festival by early Sunday afternoon, with the majority crowded around a stage at the Eastern edge of the park. A few came with their faces painted to look like skulls.
The centerpiece of the event was a series of dancers, musicians and other performers, beginning with an Aztec dance group, clad in traditional costumes with spectacular feathered headpieces, to kick off the afternoon’s celebrations.
Allentown’s first festival celebrating Dia de los Muertos took place in 2017, and has steadily grown since. The group behind the festival, Interlace Cultural y Desarrollo Integral Mexicano or IDCI, began formally partnering with the city on the celebrations starting last year.
This year marks the festival’s first including vendors, all of them "local, authentic Mexican businesses," according to city officials.
Each November 1 and 2, Dia de los Muertos – literally ‘Day of the Dead' – celebrates a day when deceased loved ones are said to return to Earth.
“People have the idea that the Day of the Dead is about death, and it's not. It’s about life,” said the event’s organizer, Hilda Gonzalez, founder and director of Mexican community and cultural organization Interlace Cultural y Desarrollo Integral Mexicano.
“That's the day when the people who died get to come back, so we celebrate with them,” said ICDI board member Maria Rossi. “We receive them, we cook their favorite meals, and then you go to the cemetery, bring the food over there and just party all night.”
Attendees and participants described creating ofrendas, altars honoring the departed with flowers, photos, mementos and offerings of their favorite foods and other things in life.
“It could be altars with pets, grandparents, and even from the casual – my siblings, they watch a lot of anime, so they would put their anime characters that have passed,” said Allentown resident Yumaira Saavedra. “It brings all the family together… It's important to keep our roots alive, and also know that our loved ones who are passed, we always remember that and keep their memories going.”
Dia de los Muertos evolved from a combination of indigenous Aztec and Spanish Catholic traditions as Spanish conquistadors colonized modern-day Mexico, festival organizers and attendees said. As European missionaries converted native peoples to Christianity, they folded existing practices into the new.
Those Aztec traditions, Rossi said, were “so strong” that the Spaniards had no other choice than to accommodate them, and they were strong enough to endure for generations. Passing down a tradition powerful enough to survive European colonization, she said, was both a joy and an important obligation.
“When I put the altar in my house, I talk about my dad who has passed, and I tell that to my kids so they know stories about things that he did in his life, and hopefully they keep passing on the tradition.”
“My siblings, [like me], weren’t raised in Mexico, so we have got to teach them, ‘Hey this is our culture, don't ever be afraid of it.’ Never let anyone think that, [if] you're just a Mexican-American, you have to be more American – it's okay to have your Mexican culture,” said Saavedra.
