By Karen Gleason
The 830 Times
Hundreds of Del Rioans attended the annual Dia de los Muertos – Day of the Dead – celebration Monday at the Whitehead Memorial Museum.
Michael Diaz, executive director of the Whitehead Memorial Museum, introduced the event by saying, “Tonight we are celebrating Dia de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead, which is mainly celebrated in Mexico, but also popular here in the United States, especially along the border. With the help of the Val Verde Community Foundation, H-E-B and the Mexican Consulate here in Del Rio, we’ll be having some folkloric dancers and a mariachi group out of San Antonio.”
“We’re also having arts and crafts and a face-painter for the kids, and then after the dancing, we’ll be serving tamales, pan de muerto and hot chocolate,” he added.
Diaz said he believes it is important for the museum to host the annual event.
“The community of Del Rio is majority Hispanic, and we want to preserve and showcase the culture of the people that we serve. That’s our mission and part of that is this celebration,” he said.
But this year, as the community continues to emerge from the ravages of the COVID-19 pandemic, the celebration to honor and remember those who have died was even more poignant, Diaz said.
“Not only are we having an event and people are getting out again, but we are thinking of all the people who passed away over the last year. That makes this extra-special. The Day of the Dead is not a day to mourn, it’s a day to celebrate the lives of those who have passed and to invite them to come back to the home, back to the altar, to spend time with their loved ones,” he added.
Diaz later opened the event by welcoming everyone to the celebration and reading a history of Dia de los Muertos, an event that blended earlier native Mesoamerican traditions with the later religious influences of European colonizers.
Mexico Consul in Del Rio Paloma Villaseñor Vargas also welcomed those attending and introduced the dancers, members of Grupo Folklorico Cotzal, who performed several numbers.
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