Through Día de los Muertos, José Sanabria invites the Island to take part in a Mexican tradition that is informed by indigenous beliefs that pre-date the Spanish conquest and infused with Spanish traditions of the Catholic Church, specifically “All Souls’ Day.” The central theme is one of remembrance of the dead, a celebration of the idea that those we lose can remain part of the lives we continue to build.
The monarch has been my favorite butterfly for as long as I can remember.
Over the years I have come to see something of myself in its journey — the transformation, the fragility, the distance traveled on wings that look far too delicate to carry something so far. As a cancer survivor, I have returned to that image again and again. For me, the monarch became a reminder that transformation does not always mean becoming someone entirely new. Sometimes it means surviving long enough to discover what was inside of you all along. But recently, José Sanabria gave the monarch another meaning.
I met Sanabria at the recent HERitage event, curated by Sarah Shaw Dawson — a gathering rooted in honoring the historic women of Martha’s Vineyard and the legacies they left behind. Perhaps it was fitting that our conversation eventually turned toward another tradition centered on remembering those who came before us.
Sanabria helps lead an annual Día de los Muertos gathering at the Aquinnah Cultural Center. The gathering carries forward a Mexican tradition with roots in indigenous practices of honoring the dead that predate Spanish colonization. Over generations, those practices became intertwined with Catholic observances, shaping the Day of the Dead celebrated today. Then Sanabria told me something I could not stop thinking about: In parts of Mexico, the arrival of monarch butterflies is associated with the return of ancestors, their visit announced on delicate wings. I went home wanting to understand more.
Each fall millions of monarch butterflies make their way to the mountains of central Mexico, arriving around Día de los Muertos. For some Mexican indigenous communities, that timing carries a deeper meaning: The butterflies are connected to the belief that the souls of loved ones have returned to visit.
I had known the monarch as a symbol of survival. Now I was beginning to see it as a symbol of return. I found myself thinking about what we carry with us: the people who shaped us, the stories we inherited, the names we continue to speak, and the lives that made our own possible. None of us arrives here alone. Each year Día de los Muertos creates space to remember that and to welcome loved ones home.
Sanabria grew up in Mexico City, built on the site of the great pre-Hispanic city of Tenochtitlán, the capital of the Mexican people. He has lived on Martha’s Vineyard for more than three decades. Though raised in the city, he spent time around his family’s farms and ranches in the countryside. The Vineyard’s landscape reminded him of that part of home. He came to try Island life, and stayed.
In the early years of Sanabria living on the Island, he remembers people from across Latin America gathering weekly for Spanish nights.They brought foods from their countries and welcomed anyone who spoke Spanish or wanted to practice. On an Island where, he says, the Hispanic community was relatively small, the gatherings offered a way to find one another and keep familiar sounds and tastes close to the heart.
Years later, three women he calls his sisters — Adriana Giles Ignacio, Berta Giles Welch, and Carla Giles Cuch — asked whether they could join together to create a Día de los Muertos celebration on the Island. Sanabria describes them as Wampanoag women with Mexican heritage who had spent time in Mexico when they were young. They missed that part of their family’s culture. He understood, as he was “missing also that part of my culture,” he told me.
What began with a shared longing has become an annual gathering. This November will mark its fifth year at the Aquinnah Cultural Center; it will be held on Nov. 2. Everyone is invited to bring a photograph of someone they love who has died — a relative, a friend, anyone they wish to honor. The photographs are placed around an altar. Outside, Sanabria leads a ceremony welcoming loved ones back for a visit. The gathering is open to the public, including families and children.
Asked whether the gathering was intended to raise money, Sanabria returned to its spiritual purpose. He and the women who began it have kept the focus on remembrance. There is no need to arrive knowing the rituals or having the right words for grief. People can simply bring a photograph and be present.
“When people ask me why we celebrate death, I say, No, we don’t celebrate that. We celebrate life,” Sanabria told me. “We were born, and we know that we’re gonna go to another part of the cycle … It’s sad when somebody dies, but this celebration that we have is not like mourning them. It’s celebrating them.”
Sanabria explained that visiting the graves of loved ones is one way families in Mexico observe Día de los Muertos. They bring flowers, candles, food, and music, gathering at the cemetery to honor those who have died, and spend time with them. “It’s like a party right there on the graveyard,” he said. As he described the candlelight and the scent of copal, I could hear how joyful and deeply spiritual the tradition is for him.
Listening to him, I thought of my grandmother. I know how grief can live beside gratitude, how someone can be absent from the room and still present in the way you move through it.
Our conversation turned from remembering those who came before us to considering what we might leave behind. Sanabria spoke of an ancestral understanding of legacy measured not in money or property, but in what a person gives to others.
“Because everything in our culture is about the community,” Sanabria said. “What is your purpose? Real purpose?” He asks us to think beyond ourselves and consider what we will give “to your family, to your community, to your country, to the world, to the universe.”
Those questions stayed with me. We build a legacy while we are living: in the neighbor we check on, the story we make sure is told, and the door we hold open long enough for someone else to walk through.
That spirit of community is part of the invitation on Día de los Muertos. Someone who has never celebrated can bring a photograph, learn about a tradition that matters to their neighbors, and join in remembering a person they love.
The celebration begins Nov. 2 at 5 pm at the Aquinnah Cultural Center. aquinnah.org/events.
