Altars like this one, from a previous Kyle Dia de los Muertos celebration, are set up to memorialize family members that have passed away. (Photo by Cyndy Slovak-Barton)
Editor’s Note: This is a report on the Day of the Dead by Valeria Hernandez, a Spanish III student at Wallace Middle School. The report has been translated from Spanish and condensed.
Andrea and Estrella’s teacher gave them a homework assignment to write a report, as a team, about the Day of the Dead. However, neither one of them knew what was done that day. They knew that the bakeries always baked bread for the dead on Nov. 1 and 2 because Andrea once asked her mother why the bakeries always had bread for the dead. After giving some thought about how to approach the project, they decided to ask one of their moms for help.
Estrella’s mom told them that some families make an altar to honor members of their family that have died and they prepare their favorite dishes and they place them in the altar. The altar is decorated with candles, flowers, small skulls made of sugar, skeletons, and the deceased’s favorite foods and drinks as well as their photos. And when the day arrives, they play their favorite music that the deceased liked.
Other families prefer to take the deceased’s favorite foods to the cemetery and they bring them flowers and decorate their tomb. But in each state things are celebrated differently; some have parades and some don’t. The bakeries also bake “pan de muerto” during those days.
