Celebrating the Day of the Dead, Mexicans try to understand what it means to adhere to traditions.

MEXICO CITY — It’s midnight on the outskirts of Mexico City and the Pantheon of San Gregorio is not only alive, it’s thriving.

The blare of mariachi echoes as families decorate the graves of lost loved ones with rows of candles, orange champasuchil flowers and their favorite treats, from pan de muerto to bottles of Coca-Cola.

Every year around this time, Mexico bustles with Day of the Dead celebrations. Families gather in cemeteries across the country on November 1 to reunite with their dead, as their ancestors have done for centuries.

For many other residents of such small communities, it is also about preserving the essence of their traditions, as celebrations at venues in larger centers are increasingly marked by mass tourism.

“We are keeping our tradition, part of our heritage, that my mother instilled in me,” said 58-year-old Antonio Melendez. “We can’t let him get lost.”

Melendez was among a crowd of people gathered at the cemetery, hidden in a maze of canals and brick buildings in Xochimilco, a neighborhood in southern Mexico City that has long preserved traditions that have faded in other parts of the country.

He gathered with his two daughters around his mother’s grave, marked with orange flower petals spread out in the shape of a cross and bouquets of pink flowers, his mother’s favorite color.

Melendez said she died last year and the loss was still fresh, so he tried to remember her by continuing the same rituals he watched her perform growing up, this time with his daughters. He began preparing for the celebration four days earlier by making a tamale from scratch and building a small altar for it in their home.

The Day of the Dead dates back to centuries of ancient indigenous civilizations who held parties when someone died to guide them into the next life and placed food on altars to nourish them on their travels, according to the Mexican government.

“In this Day of the Dead celebration, death is not an absence but a living presence; death is a symbol of life, which materializes in the proposed altar,” he writes.

When Spanish colonizers arrived and began imposing Catholicism on indigenous communities, they mixed indigenous traditions with Catholic holidays. The celebration of the dead was then synchronized with All Saints’ Day, which was celebrated on November 1 and ended on November 2.

Although celebrations begin to pick up steam in late October, Mexican tradition says that on this night the dead are closest to the living world, and people hope to keep them company. Although every family celebrates differently.

At the Pantheon of San Gregorio, elderly women carry huge bunches of orange flowers, the iconic flower of death. Some families weep in each other’s arms. Others sit alone silently next to the graves of loved ones. Even more people drink mezcal and tell stories of their family members.

Gathered with her daughter and granddaughter, 60-year-old Beatriz Chavez kneels at the graves of her son, nephew and father, quietly lighting candles.

“It’s like being with them for another year, feeling like even though they can’t see them, we feel like we’re closer to them,” Chavez said, noting that she planned to sleep in the cemetery, as she did every time. a year since her father died when she was 10.

For many years, this tradition was the focus of the Disney film Coco. The Day of the Dead parade in Mexico City was also featured in the James Bond film, despite the fact that no such parade existed in real life. The annual celebrations later adopted the parade idea from the film.

Now people from all over the world flock to this Latin American country, eager to experience the rich traditions firsthand.

But one day, whimsical Day of the Dead celebrations in centers like Mexico City, Oaxaca and Michoacán began to fill with tourists taking photographs of mourners. In recent years, many Mexicans have also begun to mix the holiday with Halloween, and other new traditions have emerged, such as the James Bond parade.

Some, like Melendez, are irritated by change.

“Halloween isn’t ours, it’s the Day of the Dead,” he said. “It’s sad because it gets distorted. We are losing the essence of who we are. This is part of us, our roots.”

For Melendez, it adds an extra level of importance to the celebration at their small cemetery, which he and others say remains true to centuries-old traditions.

This coincides with a larger conversation unfolding across Mexico amid an influx of American “expats” and tourists. As more move to or travel to Mexico City, rents are becoming so high that many Mexicans are being pushed out of the neighborhoods in which they have lived most of their lives, leaving much of the city simmering with frustration.

Those who roam the graves and sell flowers and food on the streets see the change not as a loss of tradition, but rather as an evolution – a way for younger generations to continue to pass on their heritage in their own way and share it with others. new audience.

Such was the case for the grieving Chavez, who celebrated with her daughter and granddaughter. They used their iPhone flashlights to help their grandmother arrange flowers.

“It’s great because we’re talking about other places being interested in our culture. And I think it’s important to show all the love we have for our dead and celebrate death – it’s important that they know about our roots, our traditions, from generation to generation,” said her daughter, Ana Laura Anell Chavez, 36.