Dia De Los Muertos: A Mother's Effort to Reclaim Halloween

By Maria Murriel

Chef Maggie Jimenez has made a living out of Mexican food. She's hosted cooking shows and contributed recipes to magazines. Born and raised in Mexico, she holds her heritage high. But her half-Mexican daughters are growing up in the U.S., and Maggie seeks to instill pride for their heritage in them.

Married to an American man for 17 years, Maggie found ways to balance the presence of her and her husband's cultures in their girls' lives.

"In my case, it's also the Catholic-Protestant lifestyle," Maggie says. "One Sunday it would be at [my husband's] church, one Sunday with me."

The chef is currently working with instant-coffee brand Nescafe, which released a survey stating that 70 percent of Latino parents in the U.S. feel guilty about their children not being exposed to as much Latin heritage as they were. Maggie finds the way to remedy this is to tell them stories, and interlace them with food.

Now divorced, her daughters celebrate Thanksgiving at their father's house, and spend other holidays with Mom. For Maggie, a big one is Mexico's Dia De Los Muertos.

"It's very different from Halloween," Maggie says, "from the altars people set up, to the foods they eat to commemorate their loved ones. I try to take my daughters to Mexico at least once a year, but here [at home], is where I have to attack the most with our culture. It's the only way to pass it on from generation to generation."

So, this year on Nov. 1, after they've put away their Halloween costumes, Maggie and her daughters will sit down for dinner at midnight. They'll break the rosca de muertos, a type of large dinner roll made in Mexico for the holiday, and they'll drink hot chocolate.

Click here for Maggie's recipe for cafe de olla.

The point is to commemorate loved ones who've passed on by serving the food they liked to eat and telling fond stories of them.

"We'll sing and light candles, and every year we add a photo to the mantel, which sits in front of the dinner table to make it as if our relatives are with us at the meal," Maggie says.

"It's important ... because their mother is Mexican, and it's a country with so much culture. Showing that to them is very important."