Queens Bakeries Feed the Dead and the Living

Posted on 08. Dec, 2009 by Nadia Sussman in Uncategorized

At the end of October, Juan Gonzales bakes for the dead, and gives Mexicans living in Queens a taste of home. For the last few days of the month, Gonzalez supplies his North Corona customers with sweet rolls flavored with orange peel, cinnamon and brandy.

Ingredients for hojaldras

Gonzales is one of several Mexican bakers in North Corona and Jackson Heights who prepares pan de muerto or traditional bread for Day of the Dead and the days leading up to it. Originally from Puebla, Mexico, he makes sure that Mexican immigrants can still have traditional ojaldras, sweet rolls adorned with crosses and pink-sugar-covered muertitos shaped like bodies with crossed arms. Mexican immigrants eat the breads and offer them to their deceased loved ones on seasonal altars.

Many Mexican immigrants in Queens cannot celebrate Day of the Dead as they used to in their home country. They forego midnight trips to the cemetery, since their ancestors are not buried here. They build small altars to their relatives in their homes, but not large public displays like in Mexico. They do not light the traditional tall candles for fear of burning the house down.

But bread for the dead helps keep traditions alive.

“Because we can’t go back to our country, we have to do it here,” said Gonzales, who runs Beky Bakery on 103rd Street with his two sons. They opened the bakery nearly six years ago.

Gonzales’ sons Jesus and Fernando prepared special breads that sell for $1.50 to $5.00. The sales give his bakeshop a mild economic boost and give Gonzales a feeling of serving the community, he said.

From October 28 to November 2, Mexicans honor different groups of the dead—children, those who died in accidents, those who were never baptized—on different days.

Day of the Dead incorporates Aztec and Catholic traditions said Emily Socolov, Executive Director of Mano a Mano, a Mexican-American cultural organization. Ancient Aztecs believed that different groups of people went to different heavens. They left edible offerings on altars for the dead, she said, who consumed the essence of the food and drink.

Ojaldras and muertitos are typical altar adornments, along with flowers, paper, fruits and the favorite foods of the deceased relative.

A few blocks down 37th Avenue, Gianelli Veyta prepared his first Day of the Dead breads with his head bread baker Juan Villanueva. Veyta and his brother, also from Puebla, opened a Mexican bakery just five months ago.

Under the instruction of Villanueva, Veyta will make smaller breads for deceased children, and breads of varying shapes for different days of the festival, he said.

The bakery is just beginning to establish clientele, and Veyta doesn’t know how his holiday sales will fare. Younger Mexicans do not practice the traditions so strongly, he said.

Off Roosevelt Avenue, with the elevated train roaring overhead, customers bought large ojaldras at Vallecito Bakery, a more venerable establishment.

Jose Barrera of Jackson Heights, a customer in Vallecito Bakery, purchased holiday bread to eat because he likes the taste, but said he doesn’t have room to make an altar at home. If he built one, he said, he would roll over it in his sleep.

“If you live in just a room it’s not possible,” said Jovita Flores, who worked the counter at Vallecito Bakery and made change for Barrera. Many Mexicans in tight living quarters send money home to finance altars there, she said.

Barrera thinks there’s enough real estate for the dead without his contributions. “God has his own place,” he said laughing, “He doesn’t need mine.” He left the bakery with a bag of bread.