Helena Martinez has many roles. On any given day, she’s Miss Martinez to students learning to confidently communicate their needs; a big sister trying to keep the ‘hermanitos’ group chat alive; and each fall, she’s the mind and heart behind Hartford’s annual Día de los Muertos celebration.
For Martinez, all those parts of her life are connected by something her parents taught her early on: respect.
“My parents taught me at a very young age, respect looks like a multitude of things,” Martinez said.
Respect is feeling seen
At the start of the school year, Martinez asks her students one question: what’s my name?
As a speech language assistant in Springfield, Mass., Martinez works with students with disabilities to help them better communicate and advocate for themselves. Names may seem small but, to Martinez, it’s one of the first ways we show respect.
“It is so important to be proud of your own name and introduce yourself,” Martinez said. “But also know the names of the people that you're having interactions with day in and day out.”
Beyond students feeling respected, she wants them to feel seen because she knows how important it was to her growing up. She recalls the impact of having a Latina teacher herself.
“I was like ‘Oh my gosh, this lady is Latina, just like me,” she remembered. “It just gives you a sense of belonging and safety having that.”
She wants her students to feel the same way, especially in a predominately Latino school, when encouraged to challenge themselves.
“It’s really cool to see my students grow. Some of them don’t communicate at all to all of sudden, parents are like ‘I can’t get them to be quiet now,’” Martinez said.
But working with students wasn’t always the dream. Growing up, she imagined several careers for herself from photography to cosmetology and social work, ultimately becoming the first in her family to graduate college. Yet with each new direction, the nucleus stayed the same: Her loved ones.
Respect is honoring your family
Martinez is an older sister. She remembers fondly helping with her sibling’s homework, cooking when they were hungry and splitting laundry duty — jokingly calling herself a house manager.
“Being an older sister means being a mentor, a caregiver… and having my legacy continue with them as well,” she said.
She knows this because she’s been a younger sister, too.
Before her younger siblings were born, she had two older half sisters.
“When we were all together, it was great. But then when they weren't around, I felt very alone,” Martinez said. “We have different dads. So like every weekend they would go away, and it was like I was an only child.”
As years passed, one sister moved away and the other, Charlie, passed away in 2010 at 17 years old.
“She was performing with her high school band in the color guard, and when she came home one night, she had a seizure,” Martinez recalled. “It turned out to be cardiac arrest, and there wasn't enough oxygen going to her brain.”
At the hospital, the family was approached about Charlie being an organ donor. Martinez remembers her mother including her in that conversation. What felt scary at first, later became a way for the family to honor Charlie and her wishes.
“Even though her life was short, it's so much more meaningful because she's helped so many people continue on with their lives,” Martinez said.
Martinez said her major organs were donated to help others.
While she was still young herself, Charlie’s death changed the way she thought about loss and the time she has with her loved ones. At the time, that meant sticking by her family.
Out of high school, she deferred plans to attend photography school in New York City.
“I was like, ‘No, I'm not leaving. I have to stay with my siblings.’”
But as time passed, Martinez realized she didn’t need to put her life on hold to honor her family.
“Seeing them grow up right before my eyes has just been very rewarding and also motivating to keep living my life and to keep doing the things that I want to do and that bring me joy,” she said about her younger siblings.
Respect is community
Coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic, Martinez’s want to live a full life collided with another need: community.
One afternoon, she was visiting the Gentle Bull Shop on Pratt Street in Hartford, owned by her childhood friend, Gabrielle Rodrigue. Her friend had a small altar behind the counter honoring loved ones. Martinez left but couldn’t stop thinking about the altar — or her sister.
“I just kept hearing my sister Charlie's voice in the back of my head, of like ‘Day of Dead!’” she recalled.
The altar reminded her of a Mexican tradition she grew up celebrating. She wanted others to have an outlet to honor life and death as well. And with that, Hartford’s Annual Día de los Muertos Celebration was born.
“It’s a time to honor your loved ones who have passed, pay homage to them in whichever way that looks to you,” she said.
For Martinez, that’s adding tamales or Mexican red rice to her ofrenda for her sister Charlie; candy and sweets for nieces and nephews that have passed; and tequila shots for her aunts.
“But it’s also a time to remember that life is a joyous, celebratory thing,” she underscored.
What once was a small celebration on Pratt Street in Hartford, is entering its fourth year. On Nov. 1st, the annual Día de los Muertos Celebration will take place at The Wadsworth Museum with a live mariachi band, face painting, a showing of Disney’s “Coco” and local vendors.
For Martinez, every event she hosts is a community effort. That means thinking of attendees, partners and who she can uplift along the way.
“It's like a ladder, right? Somebody had to build that ladder. Somebody had to put that ladder there and then, we are not climbing it alone by any means,” Martinez said. “Being Latina to me is also uplifting one another.”
Respect is honoring cultural values
What started, in part, as a way to hold her sister’s memory close, has become a space where joy, grief and community can coexist for others. Martinez says hearing what the event has meant for attendees is what brings it back year after year.
“‘I thought it was a scary thing, but this was beautiful.’ Or ‘I thought today was gonna be sad and somber, but this was so much fun, and I got to share stuff about my loved ones that have passed that I've never shared’” she recalled hearing from folks who attended past celebrations.
Connecting with others is the year-round goal for Helena’s Casita — Martinez’s grassroots organization behind Hartford’s celebration and many other community gatherings. The concept is rooted in the feeling of home, or en casa. She grew up moving from duplex to duplex.
“The casita part came from the fact that I've had this dream on and off throughout the years, where I have this duplex home where one side is my home, and then the other side is a bakery and [an] artist space that people can come and use as a third space.”
It’s an ode to her childhood and a hope for what she’s yet to build, she said.
For now, her casita is mobile, but she hopes it has a permanent home one day. That physical space will help her make the life-changing impact she knows community can have.
“Community means suicide prevention. It means joy. It means support. It means love. It also means outlets,” she added.
To Martinez, community is much more than just showing up. It’s rooted in the very respect her parents taught her early on.
"It's not just something that you get to partake in and then leave…,” she said. “You meet somebody, you connect with them, you have a responsibility to that person and to each other now because you made that connection."
