Cultural Ambassador: How Leticia Vazquez-Smith brought the Day of the Dead to Columbus

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Leticia Vazquez-Smith thinks Day of the Dead fills a gap in American culture and can help those dealing with grief to heal.

For Vazquez-Smith, organizing the annual Columbus event has been a major part of her life’s work. She said it has grown from from a party in her small apartment into a citywide event attended by thousands — including Mexicans and others from an array of backgrounds.

“When we eat, we’re supposed to have, like, a relationship with the people who passed — talking about them, remembering them,” she said. According to Vazquez-Smith, the precolonial version of the holiday was embedded in the Aztec sense of morality, centered on earning honor rather than fearing punishment in the afterlife.

, a local nonprofit. Falling in love with a local man who eventually became her husband, she stayed in Ohio and the next year organized a Día de Muertos party in her apartment., then a church basement, then a warehouse and, for the past five years, Green Lawn Cemetery., a cultural group that now hosts the event with funding from Greater Columbus Arts Council and other sponsors.“You can bring that grief but also laugh, and people can understand and accept you.

Reina Jimenes, 41, of Cleveland, said she brought her 15-year-old daughter, who was born in the U.S., to educate her about her own culture.

 

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