Ricardo Hernandez offers a calaverita to the Cuban salsa singer Celia Cruz. Photo by Irasema Romero

After Halloween this Sunday, Mexicans in the Bronx will cast aside their costumes to celebrate Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead), a traditional Mexican holiday to commemorate friends and family members who have passed away.

Tradition holds that living family members build altares (altars) decorated with objects and food that were significant to the relative or friend who has passed on. Sugar skulls and marigolds often accompany the altars.

As part of the celebration, families also visit a person’s grave and share calaveritas, poems that use humor, irony and satire to praise the lives of the dead and remind the living of their own mortality.

Recently, El Museo del Barrio hosted a special Día de los Muertos Walking Tour at the Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx. The tour included the graves of famous Latinos, such as Cuban rumbera Celia Cruz who passed away in 2007. At the stoop of her mausoleum, Brooklyn-based musician and poet, Ricardo Hernandez, offered a calaverita to the talented salsa singer.

Hernandez’ calaverita told the story of Death, who was feeling sorrowful and wanted some excitement in his underworld life. All of the sudden, he hears a sweet voice utter a joyous sound. “Azucaaaar!,” Celia’s immortalized trademark shout of “Sugar!”

“Neither late nor slothful, Death sent for Celia so the infraworld could also enjoy,” Hernandez said in his musical calaverita. “Celia always helped the living, and when she arrived and saw so many dead, with a great smile this Cuban said to them, ‘why not?’”