VENTURA, Calif. (KEYT) – Ventura's Downtown Día de los Muertos Celebration draws in thousands of people to the region each year, bringing together the city's locals, artists, business owners, restaurants, and organizations for its largest cultural event of the year.
The two-day event takes over the whole of downtown Ventura, closing down seven blocks of Main Street to give families the chance to come together to enjoy the day and honor loved ones lost.
To preview the event, the Morning News welcomed Robby Lopez with Downtown Social Club, Dr. Martita Martinez-Bravo of Friends of Fieldworkers, Felipe Cuevas - lead chef at Mothers Tacos.
Crowds can expected a variety of cultural elements this upcoming weekend, that embrace both modern and traditional dedications to heritage. That includes live mariachi, dancing, Recuérdame community ofrendas, memorials, Trunk or Treat night market, and the beloved low-rider display and Catrina costume contests.
"People put their lives, their lives into these cars. They spend hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not more, bringing these cars to life with murals and redoing and engraving every part of the car," explains Lopez. "And it tells a story, and then we'll go into the Catrina part, which is a dedication to their loved ones. They dress up to welcome back their spirits to the land of the living."
Organizers say, not only is the event a great time for families and visitors, but it also pays homage to such a meaning time of year and to the Latinx community that makes up a major portion of the region.
A portion of sales from this weekend will go towards Friends of Fieldworkers, a local non-profit dedicated to support, celebrating, and advocating for farmer worker families throughout Ventura County.
"We have scholarships that we provide and we also have an emergency fund, so this is fund that helps directly, especially right now with immigration enforcement we have a lot of families who have been traumatized and impacted by that," says Martinez-Bravo. "We have been able to donate, just from that fund, over $120,000 this year so it's all going for such a good cause to help support the hands who feed us."
And speaking of food, the Día de los Muertos Celebration will have plenty of it. Mothers Tacos, located in the heart of Ventura, serves traditional Mexican cuisine that includes crowd-favorites likes tacos, churros, jamaica, horchata and more!
While of course the food is jammed-packed with flavor, the different dishes also carry generations of memories.
"I remember one of the last things that, that some of our last conversations was [my mother] giving me recipes, right? Literally, and that's the way that we honor, right? All the women in our lives," explains Cuevas.
"I didn't go to culinary school, I learned from my mother, I learned from family, I learned from recipes and just from friends who taught me you know the skills that I have now. So being able to to showcase that and bring that to the table it's an homage to the mothers out there and especially during these holidays."
Downtown Ventura will host its annual Día de los Muertos Celebration this weekend, Oct. 31 and Nov. 1, from 11:00am to 6:00pm each day.
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