MEXICO CITY – It’s midnight on the edges of Mexico City and the San Gregorio Pantheon is not only alive, but booming.

The roar of mariachis echoes over families as they decorate the graves of their lost loved ones with rows of candles, orange cempasúchil flowers and favorite treats from pan de muerto to bottles of Coca-Cola.

This time every year, celebrations break out in Mexico Day of the Dead. Families gather in cemeteries across the country on Nov. 1 to reconnect with their dead, as their ancestors have done for centuries.

For many more living in small communities like these, it is also about preserving the essence of their traditions, as celebrations in larger centers become increasingly marked by mass tourism.

“We preserve our tradition, which is part of our heritage that my mother instilled in me,” said Antonio Meléndez, 58. “We can’t let it disappear.”

Meléndez was among the crowds of people gathered at the cemetery, hidden in a maze of canals and brick buildings in Xochimilco, a district south of Mexico City that has long maintained traditions lost in other parts of the country.

She and her two daughters gathered around her mother’s grave, which was decorated with orange flower petals in the shape of a cross and bouquets of pink flowers, her mother’s favorite color.

Meléndez said she died last year and her loss is still fresh, so she’s trying to remember him by continuing the same rituals she followed growing up, this time with her daughters. She began preparations for the celebration four days in advance, preparing tamales from scratch and building a small altar for him in their home.

The history of the Day of the Dead dates back centuries to ancient Indigenous civilizations that held parties when someone died to guide them to the next life. putting food on altars To feed them on their journey, according to the Mexican government.

“In this celebration of the Day of the Dead, death represents not an absence but a living presence; “death is a symbol of life embodied in the offered altar,” he writes.

When Spanish colonists arrived and began imposing Catholicism on Native communities, they mixed Native traditions with Catholic holidays. Later celebrations of the dead were synchronized with All Saints’ Day on November 1 and ended on November 2.

While celebrating start accelerating At the end of October, Mexican tradition says that those who die that night are closest to the world of the living, and people hope to keep them company. Although every family celebrates in different ways.

In the San Gregorio Pantheon, old women carry huge bouquets of orange flowers, the iconic flower of death. Some families cry into each other’s arms. Others sit silently next to the graves of their loved ones. Many more drink mezcal and tell stories of family members.

Beatriz Chávez, 60, kneels with her daughter and grandchild at the graves of her son, nephew and father, silently lighting candles.

Chavez stated that he planned to sleep in the cemetery like every year and said, “It is like being with them for another year, we feel that we are closer to them even if they do not see them.” It’s been the year since his father died when he was 10 years old.

Over the years, this tradition became the focus of the Disney movie Coco. The Day of the Dead parade in Mexico City was also featured in a James Bond movie, although no such parade exists in real life. Later annual celebrations embraced the parade idea from the movie

Now people from all over the world flock to this Latin American country to experience the rich tradition for themselves.

But the strange celebrations once held in Day of the Dead centers such as Mexico City, Oaxaca and Michoacan have begun to be filled with tourists taking photos of mourners. In recent years, many Mexicans have also begun to confuse the celebration with Halloween, and other new traditions have emerged, such as the James Bond parade.

Some, like Meléndez, bristled at shifts.

“It’s not our Halloween here, it’s the Day of the Dead,” he said. “It’s sad because it’s distorted. We lose the essence of who we are. “It’s a part of us, our roots.”

For Meléndez, this adds extra significance to the celebrations at his small cemeteries, which he and others say remain true to centuries-old traditions.

This coincides with a larger controversy in Mexico over the influx of American “expats” and tourists. As more people moved to or traveled to Mexico City, rents rose so much that many Mexicans were displaced from areas where they had lived for most of their lives, creating disillusionment across much of the city.

Those who wander the graves and sell flowers and food on the streets see the changes less as a loss of tradition and more as a way for younger generations to continue to pass on their heritage in their own way and share it with others. new audiences.

It was the same for the grieving Chavez, who was celebrating with his daughter and grandson. They were using the lights from their iPhones to help her grandmother arrange flowers.

“It’s nice because we’re talking about other places being interested in our culture. And I think it’s important to show all our love for our dead and celebrate death; It is important for them to know our roots, our traditions, from generation to generation,” said his 36-year-old daughter, Ana Laura Anell Chávez.