Day of the Dead has become lucrative for Chicago flower vendors thanks to traditional marigolds

The flowers that Anahy Olivera sells out of her Little Village shop are usually meant for those who can savor their bright colors and sweet aromas. All last month, she got boxes of a bloom said to enchant even those who no longer can.

Its name is cempasúchil, or Mexican marigold. Olivera started selling bunches of the vibrant orange and yellow blooms weeks ahead of Día de Muertos, which is celebrated on Nov. 1 and 2. She estimates that she'll sell $5,000 worth of the flower in the lead up to the holiday.

For flower shop owners like Olivera, who owns Flowers With Love at 3707 W. 26th St., profits from marigolds during Day of the Dead season lag only behind those during Valentine's Day and Mother's Day celebrations.

"We sell them all this month up until November second, but there are still people who come and buy them on November third," she said. "So for us, these days are also good for sales.

The marigolds are used to adorn altars heavy with ofrendas, or offerings, for deceased loved ones, whose spirits are said to return to the land of the living during the holiday, guided home by the flower's earthy scent.

The celebration enjoys a strong presence in Chicago, where census data indicates Mexicans account for 21.5% of the population. Starting around October, cempasúchil's shaggy blossoms poke out of store windows and carts in Little Village, Belmont Cragin, Pilsen and other neighborhoods with a large Hispanic presence.

Olivera, 38, said marigolds color her yearly Day of the Dead altar at home, too. Her husband, Carlos Miramontes, was the store's original owner, but after he died of COVID-19 in 2020, the holiday took on a deeper meaning for her.

Now his photograph sits among the bright flowers and images of departed loved ones.

"Us Mexicans, we take our culture very seriously," she said. "We love to celebrate, especially death. It sounds odd, but Mexicans celebrate death. That's what the ofrendas are about, to honor death, and those that are not here."

Stories passed down over centuries

The cempasúchil's significance goes back centuries. The flower is native to Mexico and Central America, its name in the Aztec language Nahuatl roughly translating to "flower of many petals."

People of the Aztec empire in central Mexico used cempasúchil in their celebrations and rituals honoring the dead. Its bright petals were said to contain the light of the sun and guided souls of the departed to altars in their honor.

Following the Spanish conquest of the empire, "the celebrations changed and began to be syncretized with the All Soul's Day celebrations of the Catholic church," said Veronica Moraga Guerra, associate instructional professor in Spanish at the University of Chicago.

Cesareo Moreno, chief curator of the National Museum of Mexican Art, believes folklore is one explanation for why the flower endured that transformation.

According to Aztec legend, two youths, Xochitl and Huitzilin, fell deeply in love. But when Huitzilin died while at war, Xochitl begged the sun god to reunite her with him. Captivated by her sorrow, the sun god turned her into a cempasúchil. Huitzilin returned as a hummingbird, and, attracted by the flower's scent, perched on its leaves, causing it to bloom.

Moreno thinks the flower's role in Día de Muertos has much to do with practicality. "I think the main reason why it was so popular is because it's in bloom at this time of year," he said.

But he added that the tragic love story of the Aztec youths was most likely passed down to preserve the importance of the flower for newer generations.

"Being human, we love our legends, right? We love our stories, and what do you tell your children? How do you pass on these beliefs or the these concepts, by telling them stories," Moreno said.

A spike in popularity and sales

Spencer Campbell, plant clinic manager at the Morton Arboretum, said some of the flower's distinct characteristics helped to encourage harvesting in Mexico and Central America for centuries, where it grows abundantly.

"They grow fast and, frankly, they require minimal care really. All you need to do is [provide] plenty of sunlight and avoid over-watering," he said. And it's useful. The flower was used to cure stomach ailments in pre-Columbian times, and its secretions have natural pest control properties.

Those benefits and its attractive colors have led to the flower being cultivated all over the world, including as far away as China. But Mexico is still growing them by the ton. The country produced over 16 thousand tons of the plant in 2022, according to the Mexican government.

Much of Olivera's stock comes from Mexico, but she's also supplied by Chicago-based flower importer and distributor Kennicott Brothers. The company sources its marigolds from California during Day of the Dead season.

As the holiday has gone mainstream in recent years, the business has recorded a significant rise in sales of the flower.

In 2016, Kennicott went through 1,206 stems from Oct. 20 through Oct. 31 in Chicago, according to Lisa Nason, director of marketing for the company. During the same period last year, the company sold 4,844 stems of the flower in the city. For regular shoppers, prices can vary by location, but the cost of a handful of stems roughly starts at $10-$20.

"This year we are expected to go through even more," Nason said.

Zenia Ruiz, who owns Flor del Monte at 1951 W. 22nd Place in Pilsen with her mother Rosalva, has also seen a spike. Their store only offers the flowers for two days at the end of October. Still, they'll sell around 200 bunches at $17 each during those two days.

That's a big jump from the store's early years. Around the time it opened 23 years ago, they'd sell around 10 bunches during the Día de Muertos season, she said. They continue offering cempasúchil because the demand is high.

"One of my favorite parts of those days was, as guests would come in to pick up, they're flooded with this beautiful aroma and the beautiful bright orange," she recalled. "You could see people were really impacted by that."

The rising popularity of the holiday and the flower in recent years can be attributed to several factors, but Olivera and Moreno both credited the 2017 Disney movie "Coco," which was set during the holiday and won an Academy Award.

The new awareness has been a blessing and a curse, Moreno said. He lamented that some of the holiday's symbols have been commercialized for mass consumption. Moreno pointed to sugar skulls, sweet and decorative skulls adorned with bright colors that are now sold at major retailers like Target.

But he said that may be more difficult with a flower. Unlike with a skull, which is easily associated with death, you have to look beyond the cempasúchil's beauty to find its significance.

"It's easy to consume the sugar skull as a symbol for Day of the Dead, but for cempasúchil, I think it would be for people who know the tradition, and know what it means," he said. "It's truly a powerful ritual, and we don't want to lose that."