Dia de los Muertos, San Francisco Style

Each year, San Francisco's Mission District hosts a celebration of Dia de los Muertos. The procession winds its way through the barrio, allowing for spectators to become participants, and ends at Garfield Park, at 26th and Harrison. Participants in the procession paint their faces and dress up, some in the traditionsl style of Mexico's Dia de los Muertos, while others throw a distinct San Francisco twist in. Playa dust coats many top hats and cloaks. Artists set up an array of alters at Garlfield Park, and when the procession arrives, musicians are playing at all corners and candles light up the alters.

The celebration has become a full-fledged festival in San Francisco, perhaps one of the strongest indications of border exchange. As la Mision has become the Mission District, the hipster population has embraced aspects of Mexican and Chicano culture (there are always several Frida Khalos in attendance at Garfield Park), and the celebration retains many traditional aspects: alters, sugar skulls, an abundance of marigolds and skeletal makeup, but there are many contemporary alters. Alters that ask for attendants to add to them, such as one that consisted merely of twine strung from tree to tree, allowing people to write their memories on slips of paper and attach them to the criss-crossing lines, like so much laundry fluttering in the wind. A few alters brought artifacts of other cultures together into an extravagant display of people honoring death and the dead. One in particular blended ancient Egyptian and Phoenician figurines, traditional Mexican, Thai, Tibentan and Japanese sculptures and objects, among others, on a tiered alter, with candles and incense.

The air was filled with the smell of burning sage, weed and incessant drumming. I danced and knelt before the alters to add my own rememberances. One alter was built of raw balsm wood, it was like a lace building that had seats inside. Sitting inside, under the intricate ceiling, the boundaries between strangers fell away. Festivals are meant to foster community and San Francisco's Dia de los Muertos celebrations accomplishes it. There is an emotional brightness to the celebration that comes, I think, to people letting go of their quehaceres to remember their lost ones.