Hollywood Portrait: Nursing Student Celebrates Dia de los Muertos

Name: Maria Medeiros

Age: 22

Original Hometown: Riverside, CA

You look wonderful! Did you do your own makeup? No, my cousin Esme did it; she did all of us—my brother, my boyfriend, my mom.

Why did you choose to celebrate Day of the Dead here? This is our third year. It’s just such a beautiful event. I love this holiday, it’s very meaningful, and this is such a wonderful place to be able to share it with so many others. It’s just glorious—such beautiful colors and flowers and costumes. It’s the most soulful holiday there is.

What does the holiday mean to you? Our tradition for Dia de los Muertos is that one day a year you honor the memories of family members that are dead. Though people we love are no longer living, they are not gone. Their spirits are here, and their love is here. They are still really important to us—their lives changed our lives. My father died in 2009, so we are here for him, but also for other people we've lost. So on this day we dress up and wear makeup and decorate altars in honor of those we loved, and celebrate the beauty of their lives. It’s a beautiful tradition. It’s not sad at all. It’s happy. It’s dignified and respectful. We remember on this day the joy of sharing our lives with these people we loved so much.

What do you do? I am studying nursing at Pierce College. My mom is a nurse, and I’m gonna be one, too. I have two semesters left.

Do you come to Hollywood often? I do. I love Hollywood. The whole world knows about Hollywood and watches Hollywood all the time, so it’s exciting to come here. I love this place [ cemetery] and we love the we go there every summer to hear the symphony and picnic. I like all the shops and fun places on Hollywood Boulevard. And I’m a music fan and I still buy CDs, so we go to all the time, which is the best record store in this city—one of the only ones left.

There are some beautiful altars here, the graves people decorate. Which were your favorites? I love the altar FixNation does for animals. They spayed the feral cats that live at the cemetery, they said, so they get an altar and they use it to honor all the pets that people loved. There was also one for all the young music stars who died at 27, like Hendrix and Kurt Cobain and Amy Winehouse. I loved Amy Winehouse so much, it is so sad that she is gone, so that made me feel good to see her remembered along with these legends of music. It’s what the whole holiday is about, that although people are gone, we still celebrate and honor what they did. And she left this world some great music, beautiful music, so I was happy to see her remembered here today.