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During Día de Muertos, the scent of flores de cempasúchil – or marigolds – is believed to guide the dead home. During Mountain View’s Día de Muertos celebration Saturday, the same flowers led hundreds of community members to City Hall, where they were met with ofrendas, traditional dances and music.
The Nov. 7 event kicked off with an Aztec performance by the San Jose-based Grupo Esplendor Azteca Xipe Totec. The dancers, adorned in head-dresses decorated with colorful feathers and intricate designs, stepped to the beat of Aztec drums. Ayoyote seeds wrapped around the dancers’ ankles rattled with their footsteps as they swirled.
Throughout their performance, the smell of burning copal – a traditional Mexican incense made of tree sap that is often used to spiritually purify and honor the dead – drifted through the air as the dancers moved to and fro.
Día de Muertos, or the Day of the Dead, is a pre-Hispanic Mexican holiday observed on Nov. 1 and Nov. 2 that honors those who have died.
Mexican Consul to San Jose Neftali Said Pérez González described the event as “profoundly Mexican,” and that it was brought to the United States by immigrants as a piece of their home.
“When we immigrate, we always have with us in one hand a suitcase, and in the other, our traditions,” he said in Spanish during the opening of the celebration. González added that it’s also important to pass traditions onto the next generation.
Nancy Ducos, the city’s multicultural engagement program coordinator, told the Voice that this is the sixth Día de Muertos event the city has hosted.
The event has come a long way from its days as part of the city’s annual Monster Bash Halloween celebration, Ducos said, noting that the festivities get bigger and more elaborate with each passing year. This was the third year that the Día de Muertos celebration has been a standalone event.
Apart from the performances and ofrendas put together by organizations like the Mountain View-based Community Services Agency and local schools, the family-friendly event also featured flower-crown making, sugar skull decorating and face painting.
Mountain View resident Azucena Castañon helped decorate City Hall, preparing multiple altars and hanging colorful paper flags. A co-founder of the Mountain View Solidarity Fund, Castañon told the Voice that Saturday’s event took multiple months to plan and the decorations took weeks to set up.
While Día de Muertos is a holiday that’s close to the hearts of many Latino people, she said that what’s special about Mountain View’s event is that the wider community has embraced it.
“It’s a very big event in Mexico and in other places, but we’re seeing that everyone in Mountain View enjoys it, too,” Castañon said in Spanish.
