The air on 24th and Mission streets was thick with the smell of copal incense and sage on Monday. Aztec dancers adorned with feathered headdresses and rhythmically stomping their feet to send vibrations through their ayayote cuffs blessed the five directions — the east, west, north, south and the heart — with the blow of a conch shell.
The celebration marked the arrival of the Día de los Muertos procession.
This year is the parade’s 45th anniversary, and the first year without four of the key leaders and artists who helped organize an event that today draws in thousands of participants from across the Bay Area.
El Colectivo del Rescate Cultural, the volunteer-led group responsible for putting on the parade, honored and mourned Juan Pablo Gutiérrez Sánchez, Ricardo “El Tigre” Peña, and Luis de la Garza and Alberto Rangel during the procession, carrying estandares, or standards, with their likenesses as they walked through Mission District streets.
“The four individuals that we are honoring this evening all played important roles for El Colectivo,” said Maria Lopez, an organizer with the collective and close friend to some of the men. “But, also amazing individuals.”
Juan Pablo Gutiérrez Sánchez, an openly gay man, LGBTQ activist, artist and community leader was the founding member of the Cultural Rescue Collective. Sánchez created the event’s slogan “our dead are not for sale,” refusing to allow any corporate advertising to be a part of the procession.
He was also the person who introduced the estandares to the annual event decades ago. This was the fifth year in a row his likeness is on a standard.
Sánchez, who served as the Mission Cultural Center’s development director for four years, died on Dec. 26, 2021 at the age of 68.
After Sánchez’s passing, his best friend, fellow community leader and LGBTQ advocate Luis de la Garza took over as the collective’s director, helping plan and fundraise for the event. De la Garza was deeply involved in the queer community.
As he grew older, de la Garza found community at Openhouse, a center for LGBTQ elders in San Francisco’s Castro neighborhood. For over ten years, de la Garza participated in support groups, language classes, even starting his own group called Leadership Council of Queerness, Race, and Privilege, and a queer elder writers’ workshop.
De la Garza passed away on Aug. 31, 2026 at the age of 72.
Aztec Dancers are a central part of the event. The dancers this year, from Dazantes Aztecas Coyolxauhqui, lead the procession, set the pace, cleansed the community and invited the spirits.
For years Aztec dancer and business owner Ricardo ‘El Tigre’ Peña and his dance group, Danza Azteca, led the procession along with Sánchez. Peña, who owned Mixcoatl on 24th Street and South Van Ness with his wife, was a pillar of the community and ubiquitous in traditional Mexican celebrations in the neighborhood.
He passed away from a heart attack on Dec. 8, 2025. He was 54 years old.
After Sánchez passed away in 2021, there was no one to create the estandares. Alberto Rangel, Sánchez’s friend and mentee, decided to step in, taking over as lead artist. Rangel, who was a social worker at the HIV clinic Ward 86 at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital, was fatally stabbed on Dec. 4, 2025. Rangel was 51.
This year Lopez, with the help of volunteers, created the estandares.
Louie Gutierrez, the director of Danza Azteca Coyolxauhqui, was one of the dancers leading the procession and has been dancing at the event since 1991. He said it was de la Garza who encouraged him to start doing Aztec dacing after they both participated in a friendship dance at UC Berkeley where they were both students at the time.
When Sánchez passed, Louie began helping de la Garza with planning the procession. The two would regularly meet, share lunch at a restaurant in the mission and talk about the event. One day the pair were scheduled to meet for lunch but de la Garza never showed up.
“When Luis passed away I didn’t know what to do, what to say,” said Louie. But he figured the tradition must go on.
“I just said let’s just throw this into fourth gear and let’s keep going.”
