How Fruitvale Honors the Dead During a COVID-Era Día de los Muertos

Día de los Muertos celebrations, taking place through Wednesday across the Bay Area, evoke messages of healing and reflection that are particularly resonant as the pandemic stretches well into its third year.

One of the biggest events happened Sunday in Oakland’s Fruitvale neighborhood, which is majority Latino and was among the ZIP codes facing the highest case rates in California at the height of the pandemic. The theme was “Honoring Our Essential Workers” — the roles that kept the economy moving during lockdowns and were predominantly made up of people of color.

“The Fruitvale is the land of the essential workers — from our merchants, to small-business owners, our restaurant workers, campesinos, firefighters,” said Caheri Gutierrez, senior manager of communications and external affairs with The Unity Council, which organizes the festival. “Everyone in the Fruitvale is an essential worker, so we’re honoring them and uplifting them.”

One of the ofrendas, or altars, along the Fruitvale Village complex was dedicated to farmworkers: A masked skeleton wearing a bright orange shirt, jeans, a straw hat, work gloves and boots tends the soil, with a can adorned in cempasúchil, or marigolds, to hold the maize. The ground, made of real soil, also included a variety of indigenous maize ranging from purple to red.

“In our culture, corn is a very important vegetable because it’s also a symbol of growth,” said Nahui Tochtli, the artist who created this ofrenda, who is dressed as La Catrina, an elegant skeleton associated with the holiday, with a black veil. “It doesn't really die, but it just keeps on living.”

Tochtli, who has been participating in the festival for eight years, said her altar this year is inspired in part by her own personal loss. Her uncle died a year ago from COVID-19. He worked two jobs, one as a shoemaker and the second as a farmworker.

“He died in a hospital and I didn’t get the chance to see him again,” she said. “None of us were able to go inside the hospital and say their goodbyes or farewells. It was really sad.”

Around 25 ofrendas were featured at the festival. They were multisensory, featuring everything from the songs enjoyed by departed loved ones to cinnamon-scented pan de muerto, to sugar skulls in eye-popping colors.

Stephanie Jauregui, a first-time ofrenda maker, had a cempasúchil flower arrangement and a bottle of Modelo beer honoring youth from Oakland.

“Even understanding that, like, students from Oakland, like sometimes we did dabble in like stuff like that,” she said.

Jauregui’s altar is dedicated in part to her own personal friends whom she has lost over the years. The 22-year-old youth organizer for Californians for Justice said this tribute doesn’t end on Día de los Muertos.

“I just want to honor them in a bigger scale than what I've done, like in my own altar at home,” she said.