Cempasúchil Flower and The Shared Experience it Provides Mexicanos

By Eliana Flores-Barber

Orange is her color. Her aroma fills any room she is placed in. To those who know her, her significance is far more important than just a simple flower; because she is the connection between the living and the dead. 

On November 1st and 2nd, and a few days before it, many Mexicanos are preparing to welcome their loved ones back into their home to eat, drink, and feel the love of family. 

Throughout homes, cemeteries, restaurants, and streets recurring objects and images can be seen of the symbolic celebration that is Día de Los Muertos. 

From Catrina dolls to papel picado, there is an importance to the type of decorations one puts up. 

Without fail, the one who will never be left out is the Cempasúchil flower.

Acting as a beacon, the vibrant color and aroma of this flower is said to draw in the souls of the dead to our world, making it easier for our passed loved ones to find their way home. 

Whether the flowers are placed in vases or its petals arranged to form a path, its beauty is equally felt by the living just as it is by the dead.

“It’s a flower that you just can’t ignore,” says 23-year-old Gabriel Sampedro. “I think it's really a focal point, especially if you have one in your house, you just can’t look away. But it’s also a very soft flower. I think when it’s surrounded by candles it gives off a very soft, faint orange. It’s not bright like the sun but it’s warm, it’s inviting, it pulls you in.”

The draw towards these flowers, especially in the night when only small candles are lit, is very spiritual as it helps foreshadow the events that are to come.

For those who have experienced loss in their life, knowing these flowers will allow them to feel the presence and love of their family is entirely what this celebration is about. 

“My relationship to Cempasúchil is very sacred at this point,” says Sampedro. 

To him this flower has always represented his family values.

During this time of year, as the weather gets colder, more time is spent indoors, and many festivities take place strengthening the connection between him and his family, both living and dead. 

“It’s like we are one being almost. Like yes we are one family but being on the same page and maintaining relationships with extensive family, to be able to annually have these gatherings I think for me that relationship is very sacred because that's what this time of year offers, that's what these flowers offer,” he says.

Having grown up in Eugene, Oregon, there was a significant geographical distance between him and his family's home country of Mexico. Fortunately, through the educational programs he was involved in and the ballet folklorico classes he would take, his admiration for Día de Los Muertos bloomed at a very young age. 

As he continues to mature, his connection with this tradition only strengthens and his appreciation for having the opportunity for his family to all be together, whether they are crossing over from the Land of the Dead or driving to his family's house, brings him closer to his roots. 

For young Mexican-American Jennifer Rodriguez, a similar love for the Cempasúchil flower has been present throughout the majority of her life.

“It's always been tradition, especially in Mexican culture,” she says. “For us the flowers are very important when setting up our ofrenda. Besides it being tradition it is also an element of beauty and overall remembrance of life and a celebration of them.”

She continues to say, “I think it brings life. As weird as that is because we are celebrating the dead, it brings life to the person and the whole ofrenda. I feel like if you don't have the Cempasúchil flowers then it doesn't look right.”

Her appreciation for the flower's beauty stems from her mothers love of nature.

Always having plants and flowers growing in their childhood home, Rodriguez developed an admiration for the sight and smell of all types of flowers. 

During their preparation for Día de Los Muertos, Rodriguez and her mom will often take a drive up to Los Angeles, where they visit the flower markets to select their perfect batch of Cempasúchil flowers they will bring back.

Once they were home, as Rodriguez would watch her mom meticulously put together their ofrenda, photographs of her late family member begin to appear next to their vibrant decorations, and the two which she feels the strongest connection to are her great grandparents, whom she has never met. 

“This [celebration] touches on a lot of shared experiences with Latinx people here in the United States because not all of us throughout our lives were able to go back to the countries that our parents are from and grandparents are from to see a more extensive and holistic view on our families,” says Sampedro.

For many immigrants, coming to the U.S. means leaving behind family and everything they knew. 

As years fly by, many are never able to bring their children to meet family members back in their home country. Therefore many children mainly grow up relying on stories to help them feel connected to their family and culture.

During this celebration, many young adults grow accustomed to honoring the lives of family members they never had the opportunity to meet and yet many still show the same love and respect for them just as they do for the family they spent their childhood years with.

“I had never met [my grandparents] in my lifetime because my parents couldn't travel back to Mexico. They hadn't established citizenship here in the United States, they have at this point but at that time they didn't,” Sampedro says. 

In reflecting on what this day provides him, Sampedro further explains that hearing stories and seeing photographs of people which helped shape his family is “so deeply personal” and it is those stories that are at the forefront of his mind when he thinks of this celebration. 

For Rodriguez, while she only hears stories of her great grandparents from her mother, it is because of them that she holds a great deal of gratitude for their lives.

“My grandmother didn't raise my mom, so I'm appreciative of my great grandmother that she was able to raise my mom in the way that she did and therefore [my mom] was able to raise me and my siblings. I'm grateful for [my great grandmother] stepping up taking care of my mom when my grandmother wasn't around cause I don't know if I would be here today or be the person that I am today," she says. 

Much like Rodriguez and Sampedro, standing tall on my family's ofrenda, is the image of my maternal great grandmother. A woman I never met, and yet I could retell verbatim every story I had ever heard of her. From how she protected her children during the Cristero War in Mexico to all the times my mother and uncles would visit her during the summer.

Through these stories, to me she is no longer just a face in a small floral picture frame, she is a representation of strength, history, and my family’s life in Mexico. 

Each Día de Los Muertos, because of those small orange flowers which bridge us together, I along with so many others, await the return of our families to the land of the living, so we can all be together once more.