Honor and Help Your Parents: A Worthy Message on the Day of the Dead

The Way to Happiness Foundation and the Purhépecha-Monarca Association honored parents and ancestors with a float and traditional dancers at the 7th annual Long Beach Día de Los Muertos Parade and Festival.

Thousands lined 3rd Street in downtown Long Beach November 5 for the city’s annual Day of the Dead Parade and Festival. Mariachi performers and dancers dressed as skeletons and wearing traditional costumes filled the street with music, as colorful floats promoted the traditional values of the indigenous people of Mexico who celebrate the Día de Los Muertos, which honors the ancestors and loved ones who have passed away.

One of the floats was particularly fitting with its message, “HONOR AND HELP YOUR PARENTS.” It was based on a precept of The Way to Happiness, the universal moral code written by author and humanitarian L. Ron Hubbard. Dancing down the street with the float were folkloric dancers from the Purhépecha-Monarca Association. 

The Purhépechas are indigenous people from the Mexican State of Michoacán, the birthplace of the traditions we celebrate on the Day of the Dead. The holiday is a beautiful and spiritual tradition in which families gather to celebrate the life of their ancestors.

 

The Purhépecha-Monarca Association is named for the Monarch butterfly that is native to their land. Monarch butterflies migrate to Mexico, arriving each year on November 1, Día de Los Muertos. For thousands of years, those living in the mountains of Mexico have believed that the Monarch butterflies are the spirits of the departed. 

 

The Honor and Help Your Parents float and procession were a joint creation of the Purhépecha-Monarca Association and The Way to Happiness Foundation International with help from volunteers from Bridge Publications, the publisher of L. Ron Hubbard’s nonfiction works, who presented those attending with copies of The Way to Happiness to help ensure the coming year is filled with happiness for one and all.

To learn more about The Way to Happiness, watch the unabridged book on film or learn how the booklet transforms the lives of people with its common-sense values bringing calm to communities torn by violence, peace to areas ravaged by civil strife, and self-respect to millions of individuals, with episodes of Voices for Humanity on the Scientology Network.