Sophie Garcia
DIA DE LOS MUERTOS
dia de los muertos
“This is your culture, you shouldn’t have to do this,” my friend said as we walked down 24th street, scoping the pavement for the bright orange of marigold. I nodded in agreement as we held hands on our way through a dizzying myriad of people on a closed-off street in the Mission — what is now officially recognized by San Francisco as the Latino Cultural District. We walked long past the floral vendors all of whom sadly informed us they had sold out. In our quest for flowers we were now surrounded by the murals, businesses, and old trees that are sources of strength for me and other Latinx & Indigenous people. We ran into friends and neighbors at the park. We sat on grass and enjoyed processions, drum and danza circles, holding candles and engulfed in the sweet scent of copal.
On the bus home, the gabbor of drunk tech bros reminded me that to some this day will never be more than an excuse to party. A painful reminder of the colonial violence me and my people suffer as victims of the rapid displacement that gentrification creates. I thought of the homies who chose to stay home for this very reason.
Returning to the street I used to live on to celebrate what my ancestors have done for centuries and leaving with three vagabond marigold flowers because gentrifiers beat me to it isn’t a story of inconvenience.
Returning to the street I used to live on to celebrate what my ancestors have done for centuries and leaving with three vagabond marigold flowers because gentrifiers beat me to it isn’t a story of inconvenience. It is a story of gentrifiers’ assumptions, of their commodification of spirituality. It’s a holiday for dead people after all. Cultural voyeurists already either assume Natives are dead and of the past, or want us to die so they can play Indian in peace. But we are all alive, in more ways than physical and a culture cannot exist without its people.
Just a year before, I visited my ancestral Nahua land (what is now known as Mexico City) to celebrate Dia de Los Muertos. At a queer club that featured an all-woman DJ lineup, I danced under baby blue, pink and white papel-picado that wasn’t visible until the lights turned on for a performance. The performer sat on the black & white tile floor and wrote with lipstick on a mirror facing us, “POR TI POR MI ” For me, for you. She turned to us, face painted red, and cut cempasuchil from her lingerie offering the flowers to earth and the sky. Then, two DJs honored queer ancestors by naming the women and locations of transfemicides in Mexico that year. The ringing of “unidentified” in the place where a name should have been, repeated over and over was haunting. People held each other and wept.
Dia de Los Muertos cannot start or end at commodities, however “authentic.”
“”Now that our sisters are in the room with us, go dance & orgasm for them!” the DJ cried, and I did.
The night before this rave, my friend Quiahitl and I were at the Zocalo after the huge Muertos parade. I debated giving my meal to the ancestors whose temple was below the concrete, or feeding myself. He said, “Eat it. It’ll make them happy to see you enjoy.” So I did. This world does not want to see my communities thrive, its dominant languages enable gender–violence & extractive behavior, while we experience a continued history of being dispossessed of our land and homes — leaving us only with our bodies and knowledge. Ancestors not only understand, but are healed in the offering of feeling freedom and nourishment in the politicized bodies of their descendants. Dia de Los Muertos cannot start or end at commodities, however “authentic.” It is relationship building; ancestors and descendants meeting each other from opposite sides of the veil.
1 Comment
test