At Henderson’s Dia de los Muertos festival two years ago, a family from central Mexico cried during the candlelight procession as they were remembering their matriarch who they couldn’t be with when she’d died.
After, a family member came to thank the co-organizers Abraham Brown and Brad Schneider because “I didn’t get to say goodbye to my mom,” Brown said.
The candlelight procession in Henderson’s Central Park allowed her and her family the opportunity to continue to practice a piece of their heritage.
This exemplifies a main goal of the festival: to be culturally representative and meaningful to the Latino community in Henderson County, both Brown and Schneider said.
This year’s festival will be from 4-7 p.m. Nov. 2 in Central Park.
According to Brown, the festival came about in 2019 because Schneider, the Henderson County judge-executive, wanted to make the growing Latino community feel welcome and included. For years, Brown said, the lives of Latinos in the community consisted of going to work and school, going to buy groceries, going to church, and then returning home.
A group of Latino leaders were invited to Schneider’s office for discussions, and from that, the local Dia de los Muertos festival was born. Since the first celebration, many in the Latino community call it “our festival,” Schneider said.
Throughout the three-hour festival, the language spoken over the loudspeaker is Spanish, and organizers take pains to make sure the music, displays and activities, like the candlelight procession, are authentic and not Americanized versions of the real thing.
The festival is a Mexican celebration of All Souls Day. In Mexico, it’s not a day of sadness or spookiness but of reveling, when families go to cemeteries, have picnics and celebrate those family members who’ve passed before them, Schneider said.
Some of the festival’s draw will be:
- A children’s procession
- A Norteño band, “Involvidables de Tierra Caliente”
- Troupes of traditional dancers
- A VJ with a video board
- Face panting
- Decorating candy skulls, which are sugar skulls ornamented with icing
- An“ofrenda,” which is a traditional and decorative altar dedicated to a deceased person or persons
- Mexican food trucks
- And the candlelight procession that closes out the festival
This year’s will be the fourth festival. It wasn’t held in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic or last year because of inclement weather.
The festival is put on via partnerships with Henderson County Schools, Henderson Parks and Recreation, and the Chamber of Commerce, said Brown.
About 75% of the Latino population in the area is of Mexican heritage, Brown said. Other residents are from Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, Venezuela, Colombia, Cuba and Puerto Rico, he said.
The festival also holds some bragging rights.
“We like to call it the largest cultural festival in Henderson,” Schneider said.
“It keeps growing and growing and becoming one of the staples now in Henderson, Kentucky,” Brown said.
(Photos below by Debbie Scott)
