JUAREZ, Mexico (Border Report) – Ramon Corral brought his family back to the border after spending more than three decades as a trucker in Chicago.
“It was always too cold,” the retired resident of El Paso, Texas, said.
But then tragedy struck. His son Jose Manuel and his Juarez wife moved to Mexico and were murdered here a few years ago. Since then, Corral has visited his son’s grave every two to three months.
He makes sure the grave has new plastic flowers and has placed a portrait of his son atop the tombstone. He planted a baby mulberry next to the grave this week “so he can get some shade.”
The love people of Mexican descent keep for their departed ones and the feeling that “they are still there” in spirit fuels the Dia de Muertos (Day of the Dead) tradition.
City of Juarez officials are deploying extra sanitation crews and security in anticipation of thousands visiting places like Panteon Tepeyac, Recinto de la Oracion, San Rafael and the 19th-century municipal cemetery in the heart of the iconic Chaveña neighborhood on or about November 2.
Ivan Gomez, a cemetery caretaker, said misconceptions abound outside Latin America regarding why and how the Catholic church-rooted Day of the Dead is celebrated. He concedes ancient traditions like leaving the deceased person’s favorite food or hiring musicians to play his or her favorite music by the graveside are still observed.
But on the border, it’s a time to gather with the extended family and remember a loved one – most often a father, mother or sibling.
“It’s more like a picnic. People clean up the graves, pray, eat and sometimes leave tamales or a beer for the dead,” the caretaker said. Boomboxes or digital speakers linked to cellphones have replaced musicians; Mexican regional music is what he most often hears during the holiday.
The United States’ highly commercial Halloween almost coincides with Day of the Dead, and some Mexican communicators say it’s replacing it in young Mexican’s psyche. Taking children trick-or-treating is now commonplace in Juarez; young adults often dress up for fun at parties or at the office. At Panteon Tepeyac, a child’s grave can be seen adorned with miniature plastic pumpkins and orange-and-black motifs.
A child’s grave at Panteon Tepeyac in Juarez, Mexico, shows Halloween motifs. (Julian Resendiz/Border Report)
Others, like Juan Garcia Velez, of Juarez, worry the tradition is dying. He comes to visit his grandfather’s and his uncle’s graves every year at the municipal cemetery. “We are losing our traditions. I have not seen my relatives come here in years. Almost nobody comes,” he said.
The caretaker said many children and descendants of the deceased eventually migrate to the United States and lose touch with their dead.
Rosa Mendoza, a resident of Denver City in the Texas Panhandle, found herself visiting her father’s and grandparents’ graves almost on a whim this week. She said she and her companion drove to Juarez for some dental work and, with Nov. 2 approaching, “I said, let’s just go there.”
She said few people in the Panhandle, with ties to Mexico, maintain a tradition embedded in them since children, but added she will keep coming whenever she can.
Javier Ayala Najera, a Juarez resident, said he usually does not come to cemeteries on the Day of the Dead, but he made an exception this year.
The reluctance stems in part due to fear of crime and partly because it hurts him so much to remember his parents’ dying days.
“With so much violence one stresses out and is afraid to go out,” he said. “My siblings are the ones who usually come. They clean out the dirt, they repaint the fence so that it doesn’t rust.”
Taking a hand to his chest, he said he always has his mom in his heart. “I know what she was to me, it is not necessary to come see her. But if she is watching us right now, I think she is happy because her children are here,” Ayala said.
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