Mexican artisans preserve Day of the Dead decorations
Mexican artisans are struggling to preserve the traditional manufacture of paper cut-out decorations long used in altars for the Day of the Dead
By FERNANDA PESCE
Published - Oct 27, 2022, 04:51 PM ET
Last Updated - Jun 24, 2023, 12:05 AM EDT
XOCHIMILCO, Mexico (AP) — Mexican artisans are struggling to preserve the traditional manufacture of paper cut-out decorations long used in altars for the Day of the Dead.
Defying increasingly popular mass-production techniques, second-generation paper cutter Yuridia Torres Alfaro, 49, still makes her own stencils at her family’s workshop in Xochimilco, on the rural southern edge of Mexico City.
As she has since she was a child, Torres Alfaro punched stunningly sharp chisels into thick piles of tissue paper at her business, ‘Papel Picado Xochimilco.’
While others use longer-lasting plastic sheets, laser cutters or pre-made stencils, Torres Alfaro does each step by hand, as Mexican specialists have been doing for 200 years.
