Día de los Muertos is fast approaching and one West Side non-profit is featuring a series of events for the community. They are San Anto Cultural Arts, which Cuauhtli Reyna says focuses on the young.
“Our mission statement is to foster human and community development through community based arts,” Reyna said. “Our best our best way of doing that is to reach the youth.”
The organization helps kids through their teenage years by giving them artistic outlets like — among others — painting community murals.
For those new to San Antonio, Reyna said Día de los Muertos is all about remembering those who have passed on.
“And keeping their stories and their pictures and their ideas and their life alive in ourselves,” he said.
They remember loved ones in ceremonies tracing back hundreds of years.
“We remember them by setting up an altar and placing their pictures on the altar and putting their favorite foods for them to enjoy because they come visit with us at this time and we tell stories about them,” Reyna said.
And so starting Monday, San Anto Cultural Arts offers workshops all week on making papier mache masks, papel picado designs, and other activities to help you make your own family altar.
They also begin assembly of San Anto’s community altar.
“We have a three-tier altar that that's probably about eight feet wide,” he said. ”As the weeks go on towards the actual the actual day, the community will leave little gifts for people that they remember.”
Then on November 2nd, a special event at San Anto Cultural Arts.
“We gather at our community altar and we'll usually have tamales or pan dulce or something like that and share coffee and chocolate with the community,” Reyna said. “We'll usually have either a poet or a storyteller regale us with stories of the West Side.”
And then they’ll walk in candlelit procession a half mile to a very special mural.
“We'll make our procession from, from our center at 2120 El Paso Street to Peace and Remembrance, which is a mural over on 1013 South Trinity,” he said.
This mural marks the lives of those who have passed. Reyna invites everyone to participate and says to do so is free.
