El día de los muertos comes to Windsor

By DIANA GILBERT / Windsor Correspondent

El día de los muertos has long been an important community celebration in Mexico and parts of Central America, but this year it also will come to Windsor.

The Nov. 1 and 2 Day of the Dead holiday honors loved ones who have passed away. Relatives and friends celebrate by building personal altares  (altars) and covering them with ofrendas or offerings that reflect the personality, character or life of the deceased.

Between Oct. 22 and Nov. 2, Windsor Bloco, Windsor Cultural Center and the Windsor Arts Council will bring traditional elements of the holiday downtown, including an altar- and ofrenda-making workshop, a folk art market, stories, songs and crafts for children, and a traditional procession with music, dance and face painting.

Dennis Bone of Windsor Bloco and Mikala Kennan of the Windsor Arts Council have headed up the collaboration, but their inspiration came from the teenaged students who make up Windsor Bloco. The award-winning after-school program averages 40-50 local youth ages 10 to 19 who perform Afro-Brazilian style music and dance, with hip-hop finding its way into the mix.

“It has evolved into world hip-hop with a Brazilian flavor via Windsor, CA,” said  Bone, the group’s program director. ”The concept comes from poorer African neighborhoods in Brazil. The Bloco’s main focus is strengthening and supporting community first. Being entertaining musically and visually is second.”

For the past five years, Bloco has participated in Petaluma’s annual Day of the Dead celebration. “Their energy and enthusiasm combined with the color, tradition and beautiful artwork of the holiday got me and Mikala Kennan talking,” said Bone. “We discussed the possibility of bringing the celebration to Windsor, and now we’re making it happen.

“The students made all 300 sugar skills for a children’s event at the Windsor Library. They mixed colors for the frosting for decorations and cut the cardboard backings for each sugar skull to dry. Later this month they’ll help with the ofrenda demonstrations, showing people how to make flowers and paper cuttings.”

And, of course, they will perform. Windsor Bloco will be the final group in the Nov. 2 procession.

Mikala Kennan is the president of the Windsor Arts Council and has her own motivations for bringing the Day of the Dead celebration to town.

“I want to celebrate the intercultural relations and help bridge some cultural gaps in our community,” she said. “Although it’s traditionally a Mexican holiday, we all pay tribute to friends, to family, even to pets who have died. This is a festive, beautiful occasion to see that we all have something in common in loss, but that we can celebrate life together.

“Many people don’t realize that keeping Aunt Minnie’s teacups in the cupboard is a remembrance much like the ofrendas during the Day of the Dead, just in a private way. We’re extending an invitation to the public to contribute to a community altar or create an ofrenda in memory of a loved one.”

Part of Bone’s and Kennan’s objective is to correct common misconceptions about the holiday. Although it occurs just after Halloween, the tone and purpose are quite different.

“Those who haven’t seen this celebration first-hand often think of it as ghoulish or scary,” said Bone. “It’s not. Grandma isn’t going to haunt you. The Day of the Dead encourages us to think of death in another way.”

Before this year, the Day of the Dead has been celebrated privately in Windsor by many local families, who set up private altars on Nov. 1 and leave them up for five to seven days. It also has been celebrated at Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church on Old Redwood Highway, with volunteer Alfonso Nabor of Santa Rosa organizing the event each year.

“We put up a community altar inside the church, where people place food and water with photographs and important mementos of their deceased loved ones,” Nabor said in Spanish. He came to Sonoma County about 15 years ago from Mexico City and lost his wife and son in a car crash in 1998.

Although losing them was a sad and difficult experience, Nabor said the holiday’s tone  remains cheerful. ”I have confidence that they eat the food and drink the water I put out for them. They are with me again for one more moment.”

This holiday isn’t one of games and jokes, however. “It is a day of devotion and respect,” he said.

For a schedule of Windsor’s Day of the Dead events, click here.

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