Latinos, educators help others hold onto cultural traditions far from home

By J.E. Espino
Post-Crescent staff writer

APPLETON — Maria del Carmen Leon will always remember her late grandfather, Melecio Muñiz, for the nurturing attention he gave her while growing up in Guanajuato in the heart of Mexico.

He had an upbeat attitude every time they met and never turned down her invitations for a "tamalada," a tamale-making gathering for family and friends.

When he died three months ago at age 78 in their small, rural hometown, no one cried or lamented his death, said Leon, now an Appleton resident.

"You just remembered all the good he did," she said in Spanish. "We were that happy."

Families across Latin America are visiting the graves of loved ones today and Friday as part of the ancient ritual, Day of the Dead. The festival is a celebration of memory highlighted by the bright-colored altars that adorn homes, churches and cemeteries. Included are marigolds, sugar skulls and candies, basket fruits, tequila bottles, candles, pan de muerto (bread of the dead), pictures and savory dishes the dead enjoyed in life.

In the Fox Cities, St. Therese Catholic Church began leading celebrations Wednesday by teaching its youngest members to build altars. Masses will be held today and Friday at 7 p.m. The altars are on display through Sunday, said Carlos Herrera, the church's Hispanic ministry coordinator.

Latinos "don't sever their ties with their deceased relatives. The ties remain strong, and the Day of the Dead is one of those times when they reaffirm those ties," said Pete Brown, a University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh professor of anthropology and coordinator for Latin American studies in the International Studies division.

This isn't to say Catholic Latinos aren't struggling to keep such celebrations alive in northeast Wisconsin, where they are far from their homeland.

In his 34 years living in this country, Jose Gracia Sanchez, a native of Durango, Mexico, has yet to observe the holiday. "It's not a case that you don't want to celebrate it," he said. "It's just that you don't have time. You're depending on five-minute time frames."

The cobwebs and spiders dangling from the ceiling and Frankenstein figure at Carniceria Mexico in Appleton, for instance, have more prominence than the baked goods he and his wife, Kay, sell for Day of the Dead.

"It's difficult to order the (sugar) skulls," he said. "Then we have the problem that these aren't the things that people are buying."

Kay adds, "We get a lot more teachers who are showing (these items) to their classes than we do customers."

Leaders at St. Therese Catholic Church began to reclaim the traditions three years ago by organizing formal events targeting its youth. Of 90 youths who could have participated in Wednesday's activities at the church, however, only a dozen were available.

"We don't have to forget these kind of celebrations because they are part of our indigenous and Hispanic roots," Herrera said.

"More importantly, we are saying to the children … that our lives don't end with death. We have another life. We don't have to be afraid of death."

This was 9-year-old Salvador Montoya's first time observing the holiday with his mother, Fabiola Torres, and his grandmother, Celia Ochoa.

"I've talked to him about how this holiday is celebrated in Mexico," said Ochoa, a Veracruz native.

"He asks why I light candles. I tell him for my son. Now he understands."

Teachers in the Menasha Joint School District, one of the districts with large Latino population, feel a burden to teach the holiday.

Some "kids have been born here in the United States … and all they've grown up with is Halloween," said Tracy Sandberg, a retired Menasha High School Spanish teacher.

She and Spanish teachers Gina Munig and Emily Behnke are in Mexico City this weekend on a Day of the Dead shopping spree. They hope to return with six suitcases full of authentic ornaments.

It will take a year of planning and possible financial support from national Hispanic organizations, but their goal is to fill the entire fieldhouse with altars in 2009. The project would involve students of all grade levels.

The reaction the project gets makes the work worthwhile, said Sandberg as she recalled how emotional a student became after she saw last year's exhibit.

"I don't even know who it was," Sandberg said. "But she said, 'I just can't believe that you did this whole thing for our culture.' It just makes me feel happy that something that belongs to our culture is displayed like this.'"