My husband and I are from the municipality of Acajete Puebla, Mexico; we love our culture and traditions and are a country of many customs. Now that we are in the month of November and with the celebration of the Day of the Dead, I remember when I was a child my parents took us to our town’s cemetery, to visit my baptism godparents. My mother filled a basket with bread and fruit to take them as an ofrenda(offerings) and we decorated their graves with flowers of cempazuchitl (marigold) and as we stood there, we remembered the times we had them in our lives and the opportunities we had to hug them when they were alive.
The Day of the Dead is a holiday for us; usually people don’t work, we visit the cemeteries to remember all those who have passed away to the afterlife. We put “ofrendas” of the items they liked the most to wait for their return on November 2nd.
We arrived in this country 18 years ago with hopes of being able to return soon to our homeland. As time passed and our family grew, my two youngest children were born in Denver and the oldest in Mexico; but as time went by we had less chance of being able to return. Finally, we decided to bring a little piece of our Mexico to here: the Mexican crafts.
In 2018 we started selling Mexican crafts at the Mile High Flea Market, and in April 2019 we were given the opportunity to open at our current location. This was at the same time when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, but even in those hard times we didn’t request any government assistance or grants. My parents were merchants in Acajete. My mother dedicated herself to selling clothes and my father traveled to distribute all sorts of products to other states in Mexico, like Oaxaca, Chiapas, Veracruz , Mexico City and Guerrero just to mention a few.
I chose this area for my business because I like the people of Westwood, I like my culture and, in this neighborhood, there weren’t many businesses similar to mine. I hope my business can keep growing and one day be able to create a website. I would like for those who are not familiar with the Mexican crafts to be able to learn and visit my business to be able to see the art of embroidery on fabrics, hats, garments, handmade and designed jewelry. I would love for people to come and learn a little bit about our culture and customs, especially our paisanos (our people of the same country and culture) so that we can promote and continue these traditions and so our children and young people can learn. This way even though we are far from home we can feel a little closer with these traditions and handmade crafts!
