Milwaukee Day of the Dead Festival at Forest Home Cemetery

Nudos Rosas is an arts and crafts store that is specialized in macramé, and Isabel Miranda, the daughter of the company owner, said she was excited to work at a Milwaukee Día de Los Muertos (Day of the Dead) festival.

“We were invited here as a Latinx business,” Miranda said. “I was super excited because I love to express myself through what I wear and through my makeup, so, it was a fun opportunity for me to dress up and be a collaborator.”

Milwaukee Day of the Dead festival and 5k run-walk at Forest Home Cemetery and Arboretum was hosted for the first time Saturday. The festival supported the local community, Latinx artists, outreach organizations and small business owners.

Forest Home Cemetery, at South 24th Street and West Forest Home Avenue, is one of Milwaukee’s oldest operating cemeteries, their public greenspace is larger than any Milwaukee County Park on the south side, and there is room for another 100 years of new burials, Milwaukee 8th District Alderwoman JoCasta Zamarripa said.

“The Latino community has become the largest constituency group around the cemetery,” Zamarripa said, who is also on the Forest Home Cemetery board of directors. “It makes sense, that they are a cemetery, and they want to celebrate Día de Los Muertos with their Latino neighbors.”

Latinas Unidas en las Artes

Latinx artists from Latinas Unidas en las Artes (LUNA, Latinas United in the Arts), built three traditional ofrendas, or altars, inside a historic English Gothic chapel, that was built in 1892, each celebrating the many people who have died and aren’t with us. LUNA is an organization that helped build more representation of Latinx women and nonbinary artists into Milwaukee’s art scene.

“They put together these wonderful ofrendas, which are altars to our dead,” Zamarripa said. “This is what we do on Día de Los Muertos, we remember them by putting up these little altars with their photos and flowers.”

The first altar was built by Katie Avila Loughmiller, who is the co-founder and director for LUNA, and she said her ofrenda represented community and had space for people to place notes written to or about loved ones who died.

“People are encouraged to come and write notes, words, even jokes or a drawing to offer their loved ones,” Avila Loughmiller said. “It’s really for people to kind of build together.”

Sabrina Lombardo, from Native Nation Designs, built the second ofrenda with LUNA, it was called Our Stolen Sisters, and Avilia Loughmiller said it represented missing and murdered indigenous women.

“It was really important to have that because the indigenous community is often left out of Latinx representation,” Avilia Loughmiller said. “We wanted to create that ofrenda to remind people, that actually this holiday, the Day of the Dead, is traditionally an indigenous holiday.”

The third ofrenda recognized underrepresented Latin American artists. Whitney Salgado said that the commonly recognized Latin American artists like Frida Kahlo, Diego Nevada and even Fernando Botero were a limited few that ended up representing so many countries.

“When you cast a spotlight on some artists, you put others in the shadows,” Salgado said. “We kind of just want to bring them back into the light and have people learn more about them.”

In addition to the three traditional ofrendas, 50 fourth graders from Notre Dame School of Milwaukee built an array of altars and arranged them in the rear of the chapel. That table represented people who died and who were important to those fourth graders.

“I’m hoping to see a lot of people come by and celebrate life with us, because that’s what the Día de Los Muertos is about,” Salgado said. “It’s about remembering people and bringing their spirits and positivity back.”

Milwaukee Day of the Dead 5K run and walk

The 5k run and walk was set up by Silver Circle Sports Events and started at 9 a.m. with a welcome speech and countdown from Zamarripa, who also completed the race. Zamarripa said the cemetery is a beautiful greenspace, and she encouraged people to enjoy it.

“Three hundred sixty-five days a year, you can come here and enjoy the grounds,” Zamarripa said. “We want you to come, we want your family to come, and we want community to come.”

At the race, Mariachi Rodriguez, a six-piece mariachi band from Milwaukee, welcomed everyone to the finish line with traditional music.

Music, Art and Community

Local vendors and artists occupied both sides of the cemetery entrance, which is large enough to park several buses, and food trucks parked further inside the grounds. The mariachi band performed, and a DJ played music as guests visited vendors, ordered from the food trucks and viewed the ofrendas in the chapel.

Dancers from La Casa de Esperanza school and their dance instructor Jesus Avila, the founder and director of Ballet Folklorico Mexico de los Hermanos Avila, performed traditional music and dance.

“We are here representing La Casa de Esperanza school in Waukesha, Mexico culture and the great Mexica nation,” Avila said.

Marycruz Sanchez, from Public Allies, helped plan the festival and said more people showed up than she expected.

“I didn’t expect this many people honestly,” Sanchez said. “I know we had a lot of race participants, but we had community members just coming in.”

Latinx-owned bookstore La Revo Books had a booth set up at the festival, and the owner Valeria Cerda said there is a need for Wisconsin to have books by and for people of color and Latinx writers too.

“There is not really a physical place in, even just the southside of Milwaukee, that you can find books that are in Spanish, or like different varieties and books that are by Latino authors,” Cerda said.

Elizabeth Gamillo said the festival connected her with members of the community, and that she was also thinking about her grandfather throughout the day.

“I lost my grandfather in 2019,” Gamillo said. “He had a long battle with cancer, so, I kind of was just thinking about him the entire day.”

Día de Los Muertos traditions can entail special outfits, costumes and face painting. Sarai Melendez dressed up, made crowns and was excited to get outside, socialize and have fun in Milwaukee.

“If there is something going on, like I have to go, especially when it entails dressing up,” Melendez said. “So, I dragged Elizabeth (Gamillo) with me, and I was like, I want to make crowns because they look cool.”

The cemetery is not known to everyone, and the festival attracted new visitors. Kevin Stoeveken traveled from Sussex to see the cemetery, and he said this is his first time visiting the grounds.

“I have friends that come here to take photographs, they call it their cemetery happy hour,” Stoeveken said, “I’ve never actually been to this one with them.”

The Forest Home Cemetery Day of the Dead festival is a part of Milwaukee, and Assistant Executive Director Sara Tomilin said the historic cemetery should be an active part of the surrounding community.

“We really wanted to do something that would bring the community in from around the neighborhood,” Tomilin said. “This seemed like the perfect mix.”

Milwaukee History at Forest Home Cemetery

The landmarks and burials on the grounds also showcase Milwaukee history, and recently, Forest Home Cemetery and Tyrone Randle Jr., a local artist and activist, placed a headstone on the 160-year-old grave of George Marshall Clark, a wrongly accused Black man who was killed in Milwaukee’s only known lynching, which occurred on Sept. 8, 1861.

Tomilin said Randle came looking for the grave, and when he could not find it, he started asking questions.

“He came out looking for the grave, and of course the grave doesn’t exist because it wasn’t marked,” Tomilin said. “So, he came in our office, and said I really think he needs to have a marker, it’s been 160 years.”