On November 4th, Claudia Alvidrez; a community artist and the head of the Amor al Arte art program hosted the 6th annual Dia de los Muertos procession and celebration. This year the  event consisted of a march from Seward Academy to the Precious Blood Ministries.

Also on November 4th, Alderman Raymond Lopez hosted The 2nd annual Fiesta de la Vida event on 47th street from Honore to Hermitage.

This year marked the 2nd year that two similar events celebrating the same holiday in the same neighborhood, are led by different coordinators.

When asked about this, Alderman Lopez said that no one had come to him in regards to the Dia de los Muertos event. “They Are individuals that are not willing to work with me or my office” he said, referring to the the Dia de los Muertos coordinators. He refused to give any further information.

However, Mayra Hernandez, one of the owners of the Back of The Yards coffee shop helped Claudia in making the event possible last year, and mentioned that, “Last year we tried to get a permit for the event. And he didn’t give it to us because he wanted his logo or his brand basically to be announced with our event as if he had anything to do with it”.

Dia de los Muertos tries to create a purely resident lead event and this wouldn’t be possible if the alderman put his name on it. Because of this they have not been able to get a permit.  

It is not coincidence that the two events are almost identical. Myra says that  “when we presented him the ideas and the plan it’s so interesting that the next day or a few days later on Facebook you see an announcement of how the alderman is helping with a dia de los muertos event that looks like the plans we had just shown him”.

Claudia Alvidrez explains the origin of the community lead event, “It started 6 years ago, we hosted our first event in a garage with about 30 people the most” she says. “We (a few girlfriends and myself) wanted to create an event that would highlight our talents, culture and art.”

Dia de los muertos is a latinx celebration, and it serves as an outlet for the communities predominantly latino population to express themselves. It is only right to keep politics away from the beauty of culture and community.

-Citlali Perez