The Day of the Dead
Wenatchee residents Oscar Garcia and Lily Estrada decorate their car in preparation for trunk or treat during the Moravida Festival at the Grant County Fairgrounds on Saturday.
CHARLES H. FEATHERSTONE/COLUMBIA BASIN HERALD
A lowrider ready for trunk or treat sits at the Grant County Fairgrounds on Saturday as part of the Moravida Festival — a celebration of the Mexican Day of the Dead.
The altar set up to remember the dead in the Grant County Fairgrounds’ Ag Building as part of the Moravida Festival on Saturday.
Santos Vidrio, owner of El Charro Birreria in Ephrata, squeezes an orange into a giant pot of birria, a stewed Mexican meat dish frequently used to make tacos, as one of the food vendors at the Moravida Festival at the Grant County Fairgrounds on Saturday.
Sophia Osoria, 4, of Moses Lake, paints a pumpkin for Halloween — one of the many activities available for children and adults at the Moravida Festival on Saturday.
MOSES LAKE — In Mexico, it’s called Dia de los Muertos — The Day of the Dead.
Celebrations of this traditional holiday, which normally fall on Nov. 1 and 2 — the Catholic Church’s All-Saints Day and All Souls Day respectively — formally came to the Grant County Fairgrounds this year with the first annual Moravida Festival, and included music, dancing, food, a lowrider car show, trunk or treating, a Halloween costume contest, and a large community altar, where organizers and participants could honor their departed loved ones.
“We want to always remember them,” said Anita Reyna, one of the organizers of this year’s festival. “And this is the time that we do it.”
For festival organizers, it’s a way to celebrate a Hispanic culture that has found a home in the Columbia Basin.
“We are trying to bring more of our culture into the community so that we can come together as one and enjoy each other’s company and enjoy each other’s events, and just have a great time as a community,” Reyna said.
It’s what brought Oscar Garcia and Lily Estrada all the way to Moses Lake from Wenatchee.
“I’m interested in everything that kind of uniting a lot of the culture together again,” Estrada said as she stacked white plastic skulls atop the hydraulics in the trunk of a car. “A lot of these events make it fun to get together and see what goes on.”
There were, of course, vendors hawking their wares, selling everything from makeup and press-on nails, to crystals and soccer jerseys, and a complete spread of very authentic Mexican food.
Ephrata-native Santos Vidrio is the owner of El Charro Birrieria, and he makes the traditional Mexican dish of birria — a slowly stewed meat — for big events like the Moravida festival.
“We’ve got garlic, we’ve got onions, and oranges, and beef,” said Santos Dicrio as he squeezed an orange over one of the giant pots simmering in front of him. “And Mexican spices.”
Reyna said this year’s festival — the region’s first — is only the beginning.
“We hope that it is one of many to come,” she said. “We have to make it an annual celebration, and we want vto make it bigger and better every year.”
Charles H. Featherstone can be reached at cfeatherstone@columbiabasinherald.com.
