HOUSTON – This weekend people are celebrating Día de los Muertos or Day of the Dead.
Each year the MECA Houston organization hosts a colorful festival featuring several vendors and entertainment. This is the 20th year of the festival, and this year’s theme was, “Honoring our past. Celebrating our future.”
“This is a way that people in Mexico and Latin America remember and memorialize their ancestors, their loved ones that have passed,” said MECA Houston arts program director Armando Silva.
Silva said it’s important to keep the young generation informed about the tradition.
“They tend to forget where the families are coming from, where our roots are, and so that is my favorite reason for celebrating this festival with MECA Houston,” he said.
Saturday’s unique festival featured several performers wearing colorful costumes with long feathers and different designs.
“Once you do this, you get really energized,” Xochitezca said,
“There is the thing in Spanish called the Leviton," Eheca said. "It means you are picking up the energy from the earth.”
Xochitezca and Eheca, co-directors for the Chikawa Aztec Dance, said their costumes relate back to the Day of the Dead.
“My rattle here has something that looks like a monkey and that’s because in the ancient calendar the day of my birth is one monkey,” Xochitezca said.
The festival will continue Sunday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. For more information click here.