The spirit of Día de los Muertos weighs heavily on Lucia Mercado as she gets ready for a vibrant Chico Day of the Dead Festival at the Silver Dollar Fairgrounds this Saturday.
The festival, organized by Divine Sundays, is a community hub. It honors and commemorates the lives of loved ones who have passed.
It’s a time of a joyful celebration blending ancient Aztec rituals with Spanish Catholic traditions, where families welcome back the souls of their departed relatives for a temporary reunion.
“It’s a way for us not only to remember and think about the people that we have lost, but to celebrate the life that they lived.”- Lucia Mercado, Divine Sundays creator
Mercado continues the tradition in Chico, hoping to maintain it for the foreseeable future.
“It’s a way for us not only to remember and think about the people that we have lost, but to celebrate the life that they lived,” Mercado said.
On her history with the Día de los Muertos holiday
For Mercado, who grew up in a Mexican Christian household, death was more of a taboo subject and not openly discussed.
“If I remember correctly, we were told that having pictures up on your walls of dead people was not a good thing, that you were inviting bad spirits into your home, which was very confusing growing up,” Mercado recalls.
Mercado explains that she considers “death” frightening, and for a long time, she struggled to discuss it.
“Till this day, I'm still trying to learn how to be there for people who have lost someone, and I'm not really good at knowing what to say because there's really nothing to say,” Mercado said.
Creating the Día de los Muertos event is her way of making peace with that process while also showcasing her heritage to a community she’s proud of.
“I feel that for one day, or period of days, we have this platform and this ability to talk about our loved ones and talk about death and talk about those that we have lost without it feeling so heavy and scary,” Mercado said.
“Thinking about all the people that we had lost, I slowly started learning about the Day of the Dead, and building altars and having more of a connection to those who we had lost.”- Lucia Mercado, Divine Sundays creator
Her appreciation and discovery of the holiday would come much later, as she sought a deeper connection to something beyond her religious upbringing.
“Thinking about all the people that we had lost, I slowly started learning about the Day of the Dead, and building altars and having more of a connection to those who we had lost,” Mercado said.
Pixar’s ‘Coco’ makes impact on the world of Día de los Muertos
Mercado’s connection to Día de los Muertos would come from an unlikely source. She was significantly influenced by the Pixar movie "Coco."
“It's funny, because you can ask someone of any background, ethnicity, whatever when they started thinking about Day of the Dead and how they learned about it, and most of their answers will be ‘Coco,’” Mercado said.
In many cases, the film’s popularity and the holiday's commercialization have helped raise the profile of Día de Muertos.
“Watching that movie was really moving, and I feel like it made me realize that there is so much more to the holiday,” Mercado said.
During the film's release, Mercado was also traveling to Mexico regularly to visit her father and deepen her understanding of the holiday through him and the country.
“I think getting to connect with the root of it as well was really important to me,” Mercado said.
Mercado says that a common experience among many individuals on Earth is witnessing the passing of a loved one.
“I strongly believe that the Day [of] the Dead festival is for people to come together, no matter what your background is, to be able to learn about this."- Lucia Mercado, Divine Sundays creator
She says it’s often an unavoidable aspect of life, and whether it's a family member, a friend, or a beloved animal companion, everyone will encounter loss at some point.
“I strongly believe that the Day [of] the Dead festival is for people to come together, no matter what your background is, to be able to learn about this,” Mercado said.
On the holiday’s traditions
This year is particularly special for Mercado as she welcomes her late Uncle Jose Gonzalez to her ofrenda, an altar often decorated during this holiday.
Until this year, she had no photographs of Uncle Joey as she knew him, who passed away when she was very young. Mercado describes him as the life of the party.
When she thinks about him, it reminds her of her early childhood, particularly the memories they shared collecting berries from trees. Among these was a Morus tree, a species of mulberry native to Latin America, found from Mexico to Bolivia.
“I remember that every time I would come over, he would put me up in the tree as high as I could go and have me collect the blackberries at the very top of the tree,” Mercado recalls. “So we had this thing together where every time I'd come over, we would fill bags and bags and bags, and he would send me home with like half of them.”
She recalls the day of his passing, claiming that it felt more like a living wake. He was very ill, and she remembers many family members coming to his room to see him and say their goodbyes.
Her mother wouldn't let her approach the bed. She's unsure if her mother explicitly told her that or if it was just her own perception, but she remembers seeing him and wondering when he would get up so they could gather berries.
That was her last memory of him. This year, she deliberately asked her mother to find pictures, and they located one of him from his early 20s.
“I'm very excited, and I'm hoping that I can somehow find blackberries to put on my altar this year,” Mercado said.
