traditions

Being a bicultural Latina raising biracial kids while living 300 miles from our nearest Spanish-speaking family means that any opportunity to celebrate our Latino roots is one I cannot pass up. My 3 year old daughter is becoming increasingly aware of holidays and traditions, so I felt it was imperative to celebrate Día de los Muertos. Before adorning her beautiful face with calaca face paint, Alina and I spent some time talking about the holiday and traditions associated with DayRead More ...

My first memories of Día de Los Muertos was the smell of fresh mole and bolillos (baguettes) that my grandmother made and we took to the cemetery where her parents and siblings were buried, this repeated every November first, it was the most magical event of the year for me. I didn’t really know about Halloween then. Abuelita said that bringing your relatives’ favorite foods to their tomb will bring their souls back to their buried bodies and we will feelRead More ...

For years now we’ve been talking about and celebrating the Day of the Dead festivities on SpanglishBaby, but this is the first year I’m finally going all out with Camila since I feel she can now get a better grasp of what it means. My plan is for us to put an altar together for the bisabuelos and bisabuela she never met. We’re also invited to a party this Saturday where all families have been asked to dress up asRead More ...

If you grew up like me, you remember being pushed to give an abrazo to relatives you didn’t remember or who just plain gave you the heeby jeebies. I survived all those awkward moments, but I’m not planning to put my children through them. When Ana recently posted about piercing her daughter’s ears, it was the occasion for our first disagreement (friendly, of course). In explaining my reasons for not piercing my girls’ ears, I referred to my belief in bodily autonomy.Read More ...

There are rites of passage in many cultures that are sure to raise eyebrows, and even judgmental comments, from others. Many are justified for being inhumane and even torturous, but I refuse to believe that piercing my daughter’s ears when she was an infant falls within that spectrum. If I sound defensive right off the bat, I might be just a tiny bit. This week I wrote an article over at my Babble Voices blog – Besos – titled “HowRead More ...