Gaby Gervacio of Lincoln dances to “Un Poco Loco,” a song from the Disney movie, “Coco,” about a Mexican boy who dreams of becoming a musician despite his family’s strict ban on music. Gervacio is one of the many Sangre Azteca dancers from Proyecto Cultural, a Lincoln-based nonprofit organization that aims to raise awareness of Hispanic culture through educational performances. Photo by Chin Tung Tan/NNS.
Nebraskans from all walks of life came together to celebrate Dia de los Muertos, also known as Day of the Dead, at the Nebraska History Museum on Oct. 24.
Dia de los Muertos is a Mexican holiday where people remember and honor their loved ones who have died and welcome their souls back for a brief reunion with their family. It is celebrated from Oct. 31 to Nov. 2.
“It’s to remember the people who we have lost, especially after this last year and a half where a lot of people have lost their lives to COVID-19,” said Lindsey Clausen, chair of the committee for the Dia de los Muertos event.
Clausen said the celebration is important for the Lincoln community because it not only connects people to Mexican culture but also normalizes the discussion surrounding death.
“In the United States, a lot of people are kind of afraid of death and don’t like to talk about it,” Clausen said. “It’s sort of a natural part of life that we have to think about. Developing an understanding of Dia de los Muertos is a space to address that in our lives.”
The decision for local organizations to host the Dia de los Muertos event two weeks early was intentional.
“The only Sunday that was super close is Halloween. Part of the reason we do this event is to teach people about Dia de los Muertos because a lot of people just assume it’s Halloween,” Clausen said.
The committee did not want people to associate Dia de los Muertos with Halloween.
Caitlin Lombardo, program coordinator and librarian of Bennett Martin Library, created an ofrenda, meaning altar, on the first floor of the library to educate the public about the Mexican celebration.
“It helps people outside [the Mexican] community to understand that it’s not a morbid thing or a scary thing,” Lombardo said. “They’re celebrating the return of loved family members.”
Sangre Azteca dancers from Proyecto Cultural, a nonprofit organization based in Lincoln that aims to uplift Hispanic culture, perform a Mexican dance called, “El Toro,” meaning the bull. Nestor Perez is the man with the bull mask. (From left) Lily Gervacio and Julietta Perez are the dancers in the first row and Abi Perez and Kristal de la Cruz are at the back. Photo by Chin Tung Tan/NNS.
Lombardo wanted people to know that Dia de los Muertos is a “very welcoming and warm holiday.”
Heavy rain had forced the organizers of the event to move all the booths and activities indoors.
Mariachi Zapata, a Mexica band from Omaha, and dancers from Proyecto Cultural, a nonprofit organization based in Lincoln that aims to uplift Hispanic culture, kept participants entertained with their cultural songs and dances.
Hear Mariachi Zapata performs its opening song:
Several local organizations have partnered together to bring this event to life since 2015. They are Nebraska History Museum, Downtown Lincoln Association, El Centro de las Americas, Lincoln Children’s Museum, Lincoln City Libraries, Lincoln Commission on Human Rights, Lux Center for the Arts, Mourning Hope Grief Center, Nebraska Folklife, Nebraska Latino American Commission, and UNL Mexican American Student Association.
Mariachi Zapata, a Mexican band founded in 1989 and currently based in Omaha, performs at the Dia de los Muertos event. Mariachi refers to a genre of traditional Mexican folk music that is mainly composed of stringed instruments. There are a total of about 10 players in Mariachi Zapata. The band’s instruments include the Mexican vihuela, a five-stringed instrument resembling a guitar, the Mexican guitarrón, a large six-stringed acoustic bass, violins and trumpets. Marilynn Martinez, violinist and singer of the band, said that the band plays a wide variety of songs, including ballads and sonnets. She added that the band can play almost any song and give it a Mariachi-style twist. Martinez said almost everyone in the band sings. “We have to know a lot of songs. Our repertoire expands to over 150 songs,” the violinist said. Photo by Chin Tung Tan/NNS.
Marilynn Martinez of Omaha is a violinist and singer in Mariachi Zapata. Under the influence of her mother, Martinez began to learn violin at the age of 10, and she had been playing for a Mariachi band since she was 14 but did not play for Mariachi Zapata until she went to college. “Honestly, I hated it,” Martinez said. “[But] I started liking the songs a lot because I didn’t know that there were so many different styles of music you could play.” Photo by Chin Tung Tan/NNS.Nestor Perez (left) and her daughter, Abi, perform a dance of Jarabe Tapatío at the Nebraska History Museum on Oct. 24. Jarabe Tapatío, also known as “the Mexican hat dance,” is the national dance of Mexico. Abi is a Sangre Azteca dancer from Proyecto Cultural, a nonprofit organization that aims to raise awareness of Hispanic culture through educational performances. Photo by Chin Tung Tan/NNS. As the last performance of the day, (from left) Abi Perez, Kristal de la Cruz, Gaby Gervacio, Lily Gervacio and Julietta Perez dance to “Un Poco Loco,” a song from “Coco,” which is a Disney film about a Mexican boy who dreams of becoming a musician despite his family’s strict ban on music. Photo by Chin Tung Tan/NNS. Benita Casas-Castillo, a volunteer youth supervisor at Community & Youth Collaborative, brought Lincoln High School students to the Dia de los Muertos event. “It’s just getting the youth out here and involving them in the community,” Castillo said. The celebration hits home for her because it made her think of her dad and grandparents. Photo by Chin Tung Tan/NNS.Vicente Beltran, 5, of Lincoln, paints a ceramic sugar skull provided by the Bennett Martin Library using a permanent marker. Photo by Chin Tung Tan/NNS.Dinorah Garcia of Monterrey, Mexico, holds up a flyer that shows information about a show she is hosting on KZUM called Hola Lincoln. The program runs from 4 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. every Sunday on 89.3 FM and plays Spanish music from all over the world. She said being able to listen to the Mariachi band in Lincoln made her feel nostalgic and emotional. Garcia and her family moved to Lincoln in December 2006. Since then, Garcia said she and her family had always in some ways celebrated Dia de los Muertos. Photo by Chin Tung Tan/NNS.Linda Garcia-Perez of Omaha shares Mexican folktales with the audience at the Nebraska History Museum. Garcia-Perez, along with her husband, Jose Francisco Garcia, are the founders of the Mexican American Historical Society of the Midlands, a nonprofit organization that aims to collect, preserve and exhibit materials of Mexican American history and culture. Garcia-Perez has been telling stories ever since she became a children’s books librarian many years ago. “I attended storytelling festivals where I learned to do it better,” Garcia-Perez said. She said she usually brings a storybook called, “The Corn Woman: Stories and Legends of the Hispanic Southwest” to her storytelling session. “I pick out stories from my favorite section, 398.2: folk tales,” said Garcia-Perez. She told stories of “Stinky Feet,” “The Ant,” and other folktales to honor her grandmother during the Dia de los Muertos event. “It’s to encourage people to tell stories about their family,” Garcia-Perez said. “I encourage kids to ask their parents: What did they do when they were young? What stories do they [read]? What kind of trouble did they get into? It makes the parents human.” Photo by Chin Tung Tan/NNS. Linda Garcia-Perez sits with a La Catrina figurine made from papier maché, meaning a mix of paper and clay, during one of her storytelling sessions at the Nebraska History Museum. La Catrina is a skull illustration originally created by lithographer José Guadalupe Posada in the 1910s. The image has since become an icon and symbol for Dia de los Muertos. This particular figurine was made by Martin Ramirez of Omaha who worked as a public school teacher in theatre production. “We became good friends, and he lived with us for a while,” Garcia-Perez said. During his stay, Ramirez taught Garcia-Perez how to make papier maché. The storyteller has been bringing the figurine out to her storytelling sessions since Ramirez died. Photo by Chin Tung Tan/NNS.Alyssa Christensen, the grief support director of Mourning Hope Grief Center, teaches two children how to fold a marigold using yellow and orange papers. Participants have the choice to write the name of someone they’ve lost on a tag tied to the marigold. Marigolds are symbolic of the Dia de los Muertos celebration. It is believed they can guide the souls of the dead back home to their altars. Christensen said that the event brings awareness to all communities about how people with different traditions celebrate those who died. Photo by Chin Tung Tan/NNS.
Erica Koppenhoefer, the education associate for Nebraska History Museum, runs a booth where she teaches participants to play Lotería, which she said is “basically Mexican bingo.” The player was given a bingo card. Koppenhoefer would then pull out a card from a stack that had an image the player would need to match on the bingo card to win. She’s holding the bingo card in the picture. When the player’s bingo card matched the card Koppenhoefer showed, they would take a bean from the brown basket to mark it. The player had to yell “Lotería!” to win the game after completing a previously agreed pattern, be it row, column or diagonal. Photo by Chin Tung Tan/NNS. (From left) Jeraldin Zurita-Meza, Dalilah Valdez, Ximena Alvarez-Magaña, Jacqueline Dimas, Angela Gonzalez-Cruz, and Evelyn Estrada are members of the Mexican American Student Association from University of Nebraska-Lincoln. They set up two booths at the Dia de los Muertos event on Oct. 24. One booth has a huge card propped up so people can write messages to their deceased loved ones. Pictured is the second booth where they placed photos of missing children and their relatives who have died on an ofrenda, which is an altar. MASA had been doing this for the past four years since she was in the association. “It’s always been a tradition,” said Cruz. Photo by Chin Tung Tan/NNS.Members of the Mexican American Student Association display pictures of missing kids and family members they have lost on the ofrenda they created. A subgroup within MASA, Future MASA Leaders, which consists of freshmen only, prepared pictures of children who have gone missing and never been found. “I brought [a picture of one of] our great family friends that passed last year,” said Angela Gonzalez Cruz, president of MASA. Photo by Chin Tung Tan/NNS.In addition to an ofrenda, members of the Mexican Student Association also set up another table with a blackboard encouraging patrons to write their own messages to their loved ones. Photo by Chin Tung Tan/NNS.
A closer look at the messages participants wrote and stuck on the blackboard provided by members of Mexican American Student Association at the Dia de los Muertos celebration. Photo by Chin Tung Tan/NNS
Pictured is an ofrenda made by the librarians at the Bennett Martin Public Library. An ofrenda is an altar with a collection of personal objects built to honor loved ones who have died. Behind the ofrenda, the librarians have put up pictures of their pets that have died. Caitlin Lombardo, program coordinator and librarian of Bennett Martin Library, said the ofrenda is decorated with the intention to educate the public. “We’ve got marigolds. We’ve got candles and some personal effects of different pets,” Lombardo said. “Traditionally, there’s water and salt for the spirits that would be visiting on the Day of the Dead.” A card is placed beside each item on the ofrenda with a brief explanation of its significance. Photo by Chin Tung Tan/NNS.
On the other side of the ofrenda is another display where the public is encouraged to write the names of people or pets they want to remember. Caitlin Lombardo, program coordinator and librarian of Bennett Martin Library, said they will probably leave the display up for about two weeks, and by then it will be filled with post-it notes from people who visited. Photo by Chin Tung Tan/NNS.Cassandra Pinho (right) poses for a photo with her son, Adrian, 7, who is holding a marigold he made at the Mourning Hope Grief Center booth. Pinho has a Latin background. Her other half of the family is Mexican, and she is Puerto Rican and Portuguese. “We like to come here. It’s amazing to support the community,” Pinho said. Photo by Chin Tung Tan/NNS.
