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For Utahns of Mexican heritage, Día de los Muertos is not just another holiday. It has deep ancestral roots, and can branch into opportunities to explore important cultural issues.
For the three Utahns interviewed by The Tribune — read their full stories here — those issues include dealing with mental health concerns, strained family relationships, and the cultural differences between immigrants and their American-born kids.
1. Mental health wellness in BIPOC communities
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Diana Martinez celebrates Day of the Dead by setting up an ofrenda at her home in Salt Lake City on Friday, Oct. 21, 2022, dedicated to her sister Florecita who died by suicide in 2018.
For Diana Martinez, putting together an ofrenda for her sister Florecita Martinez Torres is bittersweet.
“I know she passed away, but I want it to be the most beautiful and biggest thing in the world, because she means that much to me,” she said.
Florecita died by suicide in 2018, and her family has had difficulty coming to terms with that, because of the shame and stigma that surrounds mental health problems.
“We’ve had other family members pass away, but when it’s a younger death, it’s a lot more harder to get through,” Martinez said.
After Florecita died, Diana Martinez said she did a lot of research. “It’s unfortunate that a lot of our BIPOC communities go through this,” she said. “It’s a taboo topic, it’s a cultural thing.”
But Florecita’s death also made the family more self-aware and conscientious, Martinez said. Like when she’s driving, and wants to honk at someone, she second-guesses it in case that person is having a bad day. Her family checks in with each other more, having conversations about how they are feeling.
“It’s a conversation we’re more open to having as a family than we were before,” she says, “There’s still very much a fear within all of us of losing somebody else. … We might have lost Florecita but I think it’s also made us a lot closer. Without her, we wouldn’t have the unity we have now.”
Editor’s note • If you or people you know are at risk of self-harm, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline provides 24-hour support by dialing 988, or 1-800-273-8255.
2. Navigating ‘fraught’ relationships with parents and mixed identity
(Leah Hogsten | The Salt Lake Tribune) Ali Vallarta, prepares to celebrate Day of the Dead by setting up an ofrenda at her home decorated in honor of her father Jorge Vallarta, maternal grandmother, Ruth Drake and paternal grandparents, Dr. Jorge and Maria Susana Gomez Collazo, Oct. 25, 2022.
For Ali Vallarta, host of City Cast Salt Lake, creating her ofrenda for Dia de Los Muertos is a way to tell people she still loves them. Celebrating the holiday is also a way of honoring her father, who died last year.
It’s also a way to “reconcile spiritually” with her father, Vallarta says, with whom she at times shared a fraught relationship.
Vallarta said her father was “a real force. … He had no choice but to take up a lot of space. It was in his physicality, and also in his personality. He was vibrant and extremely charming and charismatic. He could be so kind and generous.”
That was her father on his best days, Vallarta said. On his worst days, he was someone who struggled with addiction, anger and generational trauma.
She said she finds it “liberating” to get to decide when she invites people who have left this earth into her life. “There are a lot of children all over this world that have complicated, if not terrible, relationships with their parents or family members,” she said.
So, there’s something special, she said, about deciding when she wants to invite her dad in.
3. Keeping ancestors and culture alive though remembrance
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Marisela Garcia, a Glendale resident who is passing on the tradition of setting up an altar for Day of the Dead to her kids in honor of those in her family who have died, attends to her ofrenda at the Grateful Tomato Garden community space in Salt Lake City on Tuesday, Oct. 25, 2022. Visiting the offering was an emotional time as she remembers those who have recently passed, including her mother and mother-in-law, while reflecting on always being present and remembering them.
Marisela Garcia, who grew up around the Dia de los Muertos tradition in San Andres Totoltepec, Mexico, passing on the tradition of purifying a space with incense and guiding the dead with marigold petals is essential for her Utah-born children.
It wasn’t until she became a mother, and also experienced real first-hand grief, that she saw beyond the reminiscence of past generations.
When her mom died in 2020, there was more pain added to the preparation, but also hope for her soul.
“It’s very hard to go through a loss, but we know that if we remember [our loved ones] at least in these moments,” she said in Spanish, “they will always be present in our hearts and minds.”
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