Día De Los Muertos at Hemisfair — formerly known as Muertosfest — filled downtown San Antonio with music, food and memories this weekend.

Celebrated on November 1-2, the Day of the Dead holiday has traditionally been a quiet, personal family event celebrated at home or at a local cemetery, communing with memories and the spirits of deceased loved ones.

Over the past decade, reverence for Día De Los Muertos has grown exponentially as the subtle cultural idiosyncrasies of the Southwest have emerged and been captured by the ever-present cameras. Movies Citywide celebrations were held and embraced as a kind of return-to-the-roots exercise for some, and a new and interesting taste for others.

In San Antonio, the city has fully embraced the Day of the Dead. The event is on: half fair has already become a fall mainstay.

On Saturday and Sunday, the Hemisfair area was filled with festive music, smells and sights.

The sidewalks are adorned with more than 80 altars honoring those who pass by; one of them belonged to Jennifer Gonzalez. At the top of the altar is a portrait of two smiling women.

“Our altar honors my abuelas, my grandmothers. We actually lost my grandmother Elena in 2023, and exactly one year later we lost my grandmother Lupe. They are my precious grandmothers,” Gonzalez said.

She doesn’t credit them just for being good grandmothers. He said they were essential in showing him how to be himself.

“They are the reason I am who I am today. “They were strong, hard-working women,” he said. “They raised their children. They helped raise their grandchildren. “They were both great cooks, so we keep their homemade recipes alive by trying them ourselves.”

It turns out that they don’t just serve as grandparents to the Gonzalez children. They were each other’s best friends.

“The best part was that they were such good friends, that’s why we call them co-mothers. That’s why we say they’re having fun in heaven, playing Loteria and looking out for us,” he said with a smile.

He and a brother and sister gathered the atmosphere and answered questions from passersby.

Most altars were based on a table or a series of tables filled with photographs, candles, and candles. marigold and elements from the lives of the people honored. One had a very different appearance.

Jack Morgan

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Texas Public Radio

“We have a three-sided monument here, covered in desert camouflage, with a digital network above our heads,” said Gabe Gonzalez, one of the founders of the project. Operation Consolation.

There were shorts with 500 tags hanging from the ceiling of this stand. Gonzalez said military ID tags represent soldiers who died by suicide.

“The altar here honors those who died by suicide and those who lost their battles with the demons in their minds,” he said.

Smiling faces of men and women in military uniform were seen in 110 paintings on the left and right walls of the altar. Each of them would eventually die by their own hand.

“As you know, there is a war going on between our ears, we suffer in silence and we wear masks as if we are okay,” Gonzalez said. “You see them smiling and having a good time and fishing with their kids, and sometimes we can’t escape those battles we leave out.”

Jack Morgan

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Texas Public Radio

Operation Solace is an effort to use Psilocybin mushrooms therapeutically to help veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder and other psychological trauma.

“We hope to raise money and awareness to promote low-cost or no-cost psychedelic therapy for veterans,” he said.

Gonzalez said he is not a doctor, but the way the therapy worked for him makes him optimistic it could work for others.

“You’ll be able to reset your mind a little bit, give you just a half-second breath and say, ‘I don’t need to act like I used to,’ and that just gives you a path forward,” Gonzalez said.

There is a large altar a little further away. Eva MirelesA teacher was killed in the Robb Elementary School shooting in 2022. Also in the photo were the 19 students and other teachers who died that day.

Ofrenda was founded by Eva Mireles’ sisters, Maggie and Sandra.

“By doing this we keep the memory of him, his co-teacher and the children alive and make them seem more real,” Sandra said.

Maggie is determined to keep what is happening in Uvalde in the minds of Uvalde and the public at large.

“We will keep the memory of my sister Eva, the children, Miss Irma and her husband alive as long as we can,” said Maggie, fighting back tears.

Sandra is also a teacher. It seems hard to find meaning when looking at the way everything plays out in Uvalde.

“There is a reason behind all this; And that is gun violence. I know that’s a different topic in itself, but one of the reasons we’re here is to show it to people’s faces and know that it doesn’t just happen, it happens for a very specific reason. “This, too, is gun violence, and we need to keep fighting and trying to make a difference for gun reform.”

As people passed by the ofrenda, many wiped their tears when they saw the photos of the children.

Día De Los Muertos has certainly evolved in recent times, and San Antonio has embraced the celebration, making it one of the largest events of its kind in the country. Each agenda reduced this scale to the human dimension; love, loss and longing.