ElementalMom

I’m taking some time out from my NaNoWriMo writing time to tell you precisely how fantabulous the Oakland Dia de los Muertos festival was. Cause OMG.

Where to start? OK how about this. I was alone with three kids walking a mile and a half (cause that’s how far I had to go to park) through a dingy Oakland neighborhood. We got to the festival, which unlike years past, took over four or five square blocks (more like six if you counted all the unofficial stuff in the neighborhoods), and was packed wall to wall with pretty much the entire East Bay hispanic community. I was strongly in the minority, and I think that’s something that more gringos should experience as often as possible. You learn a lot when you stick out like a sore thumb. The kids and I were there for almost four hours, and had a blast.

We ate ghastly food; polish sausages, garlic fries, horchata, cotton candy. We listened to Aztec music danced and sung by folks wearing bunny skin bikinis and huge pheasant headdresses, we listened to Spanish rap performed by three crotch-grabbing hooligans, who turned out to be singing about respect, family, and unity (I swear, my Spanish was improving by the minute, trying desperately to catch what they were saying). The little boy next to Kestrel had a popsicle that was melting too fast in the heat, so he shared it with Kestrel to get it eaten faster. So I gave his mom some of my wet wipes. =)

Too many gorgeous epiphanies to go into. So here’s the short form:

• I am pretty sure the media talks about Oakland the way it does so that rich folks fear poor folks.
• OMG I love hispanic culture. So polite. So inclusive. So child-friendly. So used to living crowded, but instead of “me first”, was all about “all together”. I got jostled and bumped into constantly… and always there was the apology, the steadying hand. I felt utterly safe; I am quite sure, having BTDT, that I would not be so safe in a similar anglo gather.
• The festival was going to be canceled this year due to lack of funds. So this whole humongous thing was a result of the vice-mayor, who is hispanic, sending out a call to the community to figure out what it could do to make it happen anyway. And so with lack of funding, they put on an event, sourced by the people, for the people, that was approximately quadruple the size of the old one, and completely free. The games were free, the face painting, paper cutting, paper flower making, dancing; every single cultural thing was totally free. I think there’s a big big message there.
• I had taken Aurora off my back to play with her while we listened to one stage show, and she threw a fuss when I went to put her back on my back, and instead of the normal hostile looks (Oh my god shut that kid up!) I instantly had four offers of help and two grandmas offer to hold her. Have I mentioned how nice it is to be around the child-friendly?
• The altars were spectacular. There was nearly a block of them, back to back, all different. At least five of them were interactive, and one of them was for women, so I wrote a card for Charlie and put it on display. There was one for the people who have died in the desert crossing to the US… hugely powerful, and so very sad. Some were powerful, some were artistic, such a huge range. Amazing, and such a great exercise, sorta like “write your own obituary”, but “envision your own altar”. What kind of altar would my family build for me? It’s a big question.
• Exposure to diversity matters. I felt totally comfortable, but I think that’s partially because I got what was going on. I went to Olvera Street all the time when I was little, and I think that part of growing up Californian is marinading in hispanic culture of many flavors. I mean, I’ve done the altars, I’ve had picnics on the graves of my ancestors. Rowan and Kes were having a great time, because *I* was having a great time.

I could probably keep babbling, but I have wordcount to get to. Suffice it to say, I am totally on Cloud 9. I’m sad that we weren’t in Mexico this year, but since we couldn’t be… I’m very happy that we were in Oakland.

Related posts:

1. Musings on Oakland
2. Lead, lead everywhere
3. Independence Days

Tags: Dia de los Muertos, Oakland, Unity