The Cultural Coalition hosts its annual Dia de Los Muertos festival

The Cultural Coalition is hosting its annual Dia de Los Muertos Festival at Steele Indian School Park in Phoenix this weekend. Horizonte’s Jose Cardenas spoke to Executive Director Carmen Guerrero and Artist Zarco Guerrero, about the weekend festival and the origin of the holiday.

“The origins in Mexico go back 3,000 years,” where there is the first evidence of the skull image that “represents the cosmo vision of our ancestors about leaving this life, transcending to the next, now-a-days we think of Dia de Los Muertos as something hispanic that arrived with the coming of Europeans to this continent and the very reason that we celebrate it is because in essence, we’re celebrating…our ancestors that go back thousands, not hundreds of years,” Zarco Guerrero said.

Cultural Coalition has their event happening on Sunday, October 24, and it’s the “10th annual Mikiztli, it will be at Steele Indian School Park, it’s free and open to all, we have all kinds of performances, we have artists…we have kids art activity, we have lots of food trucks around there, so please bring your family and enjoy what we have to offer,” Carmen Guerrero said.

Carmen Guerrero sells her own jewelry at the festival. She said, “I’ll have earrings, I’ll have rings and bracelets. I love to empower women with my jewelry, so that’s what I’ll be doing on Sunday.

What should people know about Dia de Los Muertos?

“Going to the cemetery is becoming more and more popular. We travel around the valley, we see the cemeteries full of people, there’s so much going on this time of year. We celebrate Di de Los Muertos as a festival, as a free celebration open to the general public…there’s enough to go around and there’s so much to celebrate and it’s beautiful to see people coming together this way,” Zarco Guerrero said.