Miriam Hernandez Bravo

For my altar, I decided to use things my great grandmother loved. For example, she loved plants so I placed a cactus and an aloe vera there for her. She also loved coffee, which was my favorite thing to make for her because it’s as if I was making morning coffee for her. I also added in her favorite food: caldo de res. My other favorite thing to work on were the paper flowers. I knew I wanted to fill up the altar with flowers and plants for her to enjoy. I also brought in her favorite fruits: bananas. I wanted to stay away from buying things from places like WalMart or Michael’s and wanted to make sure I created my altar from a good place. For example, the items I bought were from local, small businesses who loved hearing about the project. One of the most important pieces for me are the photographs of my great grandparents. Getting them was difficult and we had to reach out to my grandma who lives in México, but she wasn’t sure on how to send a picture online, so we had to contact an aunt to help my grandma. When I first got the pictures I was excited and in love. I’ve never seen a picture of them, I just heard descriptions of them and now finally I had the opportunity to learn about them and I also got to see them in photos. I was so excited I also sent them to my brothers for them to see them.

One last thing I decided to do was to add the staple diet to the altar and also bring a little bit of México into the altar. I added in beans and scattered them throughout the tiers and then I also brought in Mexican bread and made paper flowers with the colors of green white and red. Lastly I included the traditional things into the altar such as: having water out for them to drink on their journey here, candles, and other fruits and vegetables.