This Halloween, instead of dressing up as a ghost with a bed sheet, a witch with a pointy hat, or the Joker from The Dark Knight, dress up as La Llorona or El Chupacabra! This year, retailers are stocking up the shelves with Latino-based characters such as those, and other related to the Mexican holiday, Día de los Muertos. In amusement parks in Southern California, like Six Flags Magic Mountain and Universal Studios Hollywood, will featured these Latino myths, along with Aztec mummies.
For those who may not know the back story of La Llorona, here’s a little history lesson.
La Llorona, the most popular version, is about a woman named Maria who has two sons. She falls in love with a rich man but when he spurns her, she takes her anger out on his sons by drowning them. After realizing what she’s done, she lets out a bitter cry and is condemned to roam the earth in spirit, forever looking for her children, forever crying, hence the name “La Llorona”. This myth is often told to children in Puerto Rico, Mexico, and Central America, to scare them into behaving well.
As for the “chupacabra”, most of us already know that it’s a creature that drinks the blood of goats — almost like a goat vampire, which is heard about all over Latin America.
Two sites that sell Halloween décor, costumes, etc., skeletonandmore.com and Halloween-mask.com, but have their La Llorona items sold out for this year!
