Day of the Dead in Jalisco, Mexico

For the last six years, I’ve photographed the Day of the Dead in Mexico, ever since I moved to a colorful lakeside pueblo in the subtropical central highlands of Jalisco. The sound of mother hens and their chicks fill the air as they run free along the cobbled streets, unmolested by predators such as dogs, whose ever-present yip-yapping is a normal part of life in a small Mexican village. This is everyday Mexico and like much of the country, it’s caught in the paradox of guarding its storied past, while still demanding the same modern benefits, opportunities, and social advancements aspired to by any person, living anywhere in the world today. Part of the beauty of Mexico is how its people, which even today still consists of 65 unique indigenous groups, manage to flow and meld through the centuries of external influence, from pre-Aztec times to the Spanish conquest of the 16th century, through to today. The Day of the Dead, and the concept of the fiesta in general, is some of the cultural connective tissue which has survived to become an internally-recognized icon of Mexico itself.