Culture | The Mexican and The Gringo

Category: Culture
- Growing up Mexican: My Abuela and my Religion against Halloween.
  
  Posted at 7:00 am by yukinomiriam, on October 28, 2018
  
  When I was a kid back in Mexico I never really had the chance to celebrate Halloween because I grew up in a very Catholic household.
  
  You might wonder, what does that have to do with Halloween if Halloween is a day to have fun and dress up like anything you want?.
  
  Well, it actually has a lot to do.
  
  First of all, in Mexico Halloween is considered a foreign tradition that yes, it’s celebrated, but at the same time is rejected for many. This is just because some people are trying to keep the Mexican traditions.
  
  But the Catholic religion has also a lot to do.
  
  As Catholics, we were told every time that would go to mass during the month of October that Halloween was a pagan satanic celebration where people not only would perform Satanic rituals but also that was a celebration that went against the Catholic church believes because it promoted witchcraft and esotericism. Hence, we shouldn’t celebrate it.
  
  What it made it even “worse” was my “Mama Carmen” or “Abuela”. I used to live with my grandparents from my mom’s side, my parents and my brother in the same house in Mexico, and the only person that was always right and had the last word for pretty much everything was my abuela.
  
  My “Mama Carmen” (everyone used to call her like that because she never allowed us to call her abuela. It made her feel old) was the kind of Catholic that would go to mass every day and also, would try to control your life based on what she thought was the right thing for you. Therefore, everytime that we wanted to dress up for Halloween or try to do anything related to it, my brother and I would be yelled at because we were promoting a Satanic celebration and that we would end up in hell.
  
  So I never really did anything for Halloween and in the end, yes, my abuela was super controlling and maybe too dramatic but I don’t hate her. On the contrary, I love her and miss her (she passed away in 2012) and I have a lot of memories that I can tell to my husband and our daughter and now we are the ones who decide which holidays we celebrate as a family.
  
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  Posted in Culture | 0 Comments | Tagged Catholic, day of the dead, dia de muertos, folklore, growing up mexican, halloween, mexican, Mexico, Religion
- How to write a Calaverita poem
  
  Posted at 4:00 am by yukinomiriam, on October 27, 2018
  A Calaverita Poem (better known just as Calaveritas) is a Mexican tradition of writing a satirical poem about friends, family and pretty much anyone in a verse to make fun of them and the death.
  
  This tradition is part of the Day of the Dead celebration and can be added as part of the ofrenda.
  
  Main Characteristics:
  - Written as verses.
  - Make fun of people.
  - The main character is portrayed as it was dead.
  - Contains images of skulls.
  How to write your Calaverita?
  1. Choose your subject. It can be family members, friends, public figures, etc.
  2. Think about something that you know that person does a lot and you want to make fun of it. ( for example, sleep all day, play all day with their phones, etc)
  3. Write about that action that your character does and how because of that now is dead or is going to be soon.
  4. Have fun!!
  Calaveritas could be a little bit hard to write but remember that it doesn’t have to be perfect, it just needs to be funny and rules are meant to be broken.
  Posted in Culture | 0 Comments | Tagged calaverita, Culture, day of the dead, dia de muertos, mexican, Mexico, tradition
- Mexican folklore: The Day of the Dead
  
  Posted at 4:00 am by yukinomiriam, on October 26, 2018
  “We are mortal because we are made out of time and history. But there are instant exits through the culture that are a poetic act, which dissolves time, to escape from history and death. – Octavio Paz.”
  
  The Mexican tradition of the Day of the Dead has recently become more popular after a couple movies were released within the past 2 years.
  
  Sadly, movies don’t tell the whole story behind the tradition and just showed us a little part of it.
  
  First of all, the Day of the Dead is celebrated on November 1st and 2nd and recently I’ve seen some posts that mention that the celebration starts even earlier and the rituals and meanings per day go as follows:
  - October 28th – On this day, a white candle is lit along with a white flower to welcome the souls that are alone.
  - October 29th – Another candle is lit along with a glass of water, to honor the forgotten souls.
  - October 30th – A new candle is lit beside a glass of water and white bread for those souls that died in an accident.
  - October 31st – A new candle is lit along with a glass of water, another white bread, and a fruit. This is for our ancestors.
  - November 1st – Better know as “All Saints Day” is the night when the soul of those kids that died come back to visit us. Here is when we put the food in the ofrenda.
  - November 2nd – Day of the Dead. Is the day where the souls of our loved ones come to visit us. The Copal is burnt and a path of Cempasuchil petals is left to guide the souls of our loved ones to the ofrenda.
  - November 3rd – The last white candle is lit along with more Copal to say goodbye to the souls of our loved ones and we can eat the food that we used in the ofrenda.
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  After all, regardless of how long the celebrations last, the most important thing is to remember our loved ones because without them, we wouldn’t be here.
  
  If you want to know more about how to build your ofrenda, you can check my post about it here.
  Posted in Culture | 1 Comment | Tagged celebration, Culture, day of the dead, dead, death, dia de los muertos, Mexico, tradition
- How to build your own ofrenda for the Day of the Dead.
  
  Posted at 7:33 pm by yukinomiriam, on October 25, 2018
  The day of the Dead is getting closer and probably you learned something about it last year thank you to Disney’s Pixar movie COCO. And if you haven’t seen the movie or you just want to learn more about it, you can read my post “Mexican folklore: The Day of the Dead“
  
  Now, you want to build your own ofrenda but you have the feeling that you don’t really know where to begin or what to buy?
  
  Don worry!!.
  
  Below is an easy list that can help you to find the perfect items for you.
  1. First of all, you need photos of your loved ones. Those to whom you want to honor and remember with your ofrenda.
  2. Frames for the photos. I like using black frames so the photo of my loved ones look better but you can choose anything that you want.
  3. Water. It helps to quench the thirst of the traveler souls.
  4. Candles. The fire provides them with light and hope for their journey.
  5. Copal Incense. It’s used to clean the environment and to get rid of evil spirits.
  6. Cempasuchil. Also known as Mexican Marigold, is the flower used to guide the souls. (if you can’t buy natural flowers, you can replace them with artificial marigold).
  7. Wallflower and Baby’s breath. They are more used to honor the souls of children.
  8. Cross. It goes at the top of the ofrenda and usually is made out of Marigolds.
  9. Arch. It’s also made out of Marigolds and fruits and represents the entrance to the underworld.
  10. Day of the dead bread. It represents fraternity and it’s delicious!!.
  11. Food. Usually, you put plates of food that you loved ones used to like.
  12. Sugar Skulls. They represent and honor the dead. If you can’t find the ones made of sugar, you can replace them with plastic ones.
  13. Salt. It’s used to purify the souls on their travel.
  14. Papel Picado. In Mexico, Papel picado is made out of tissue paper but here in the US is really hard to find (at least where I live). Hence, you can make your own papel (as I did) or you can buy it online.
  How to set your ofrenda?
  
  The traditional ofrenda usually has a lot of elements and levels as described in the image above, but if you don’t have that much room to set up your ofrenda, you can try to put the most important elements of the list that is at the beginning of this post and try to be creative the most important thing is that you are trying to create something beautiful to remember the loved ones that have passed away.
  
  In my case, I have a very little shelf that my husband decided to get for me and I just have the photos of my loved ones, tissue paper, some plastic skulls, and artificial flowers. (My ofrenda is the one at the top of the post).
  
  So, it doesn’t matter how big or small is your ofrenda and even if you are not Mexican, I am ok with others taking our traditions and honoring them. The most important thing for me is to remember the loved ones that are no longer with us.
  Posted in Culture | 1 Comment | Tagged altar, como poner tu ofrenda, day of the dead, dia de los muertos, folklore, how to, how to build your ofrenda, mexican, Mexico, ofrenda
- Mexican folklore: La Leyenda de la Llorona.
  
  Posted at 1:36 pm by yukinomiriam, on October 23, 2018
  
  Now that Hollywood has decided to release a trailer for a movie based on the Legend of the Weeping woman better known in Hispanic culture as La Llorona, made me realize that not a lot of “foreign” people know about it and that probably Hollywood might ruin it for everyone. At least what I saw on the first trailer is not making me wait fretfully for it to be released.
  
  In addition to that, I asked my American husband if he had ever heard about it and as I suspected, he said “No”, so I tried to tell him a little bit more about of what I know of the legend and that’s what pushed me to write this post.
  
  In Mexico I grew up with 2 versions of the legend, one of them told by my Grandma on my mom’s side and the other one told by everyone else as part of our folklore.
  
  It’s also worth mentioning that this legend has several versions that change the story a little bit accordingly to the region where is told and that no one really knows the real origin of it.
  
  Some people say that the legend was born during the time of the Viceroyalty of New Spain in Mexico (from 1521 to 1810) and that version tells the story of a woman (an indigenous woman or native of Mexico) who fell in love with a Spaniard with whom she had a hidden relationship with. From that relationship, 3 kids were born and when the woman asked the Spaniard to marry her, he said no because he was marrying another woman, someone from his own class and wealth.
  
  After hearing that, the woman went crazy and on that night, she killed her children. Once she had realized what she did, she committed suicide by drowning herself in the river.
  
  Since then, it’s told that her spirit wanders around on the streets and that you can hear her in the middle of the night crying out painfully “Aaaaaayyy my children!!!”.
  
  There’s also an older version recorded by Fray Bernardino de Sahagún in the General History of the Things of New Spain (also known as the Florentine Codex ) where it says that la Llorona is the Aztec Goddess Chihuacóatl, whom since before the arrival of the Spaniards, bemoaned the imminent Conquest. Her cries warned the Mexica about the tragedy looming ahead of them.¹
  
  As I said before, there are different variants of this legend, including the ones told in Central America, but I think that the main essence of the legend has a lot more of depth and tradition that what it could be told as part of a Hollywood movie.
  
  In conclusion, with this post, I do not intend to criticize the movie because it hasn’t even been released but I just want to share a little bit of what I know about it so you could make your own conclusions if you ever decide to watch the movie.
  
  1. This paragraph was taken from Horror Stories: The Legend of La Llorona.
  
  Posted in Culture | 0 Comments | Tagged Culture, folklore, la llorona, legend, llorona, Mexican horror stories, Mexico
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