Dia de Los Muertos

Dia de Los Muertos USI Campus organizations celebrate Latinx tradation

After a year of presenting the seminal holiday of Dia de Los Muertos virtually to the campus community, Drs. Norma Rosas Mayen and Manuel Apodaca-Valdez, both professors of World Languages and Cultures, were happy to celebrate the custom in person. This year's celebration had a decidedly different feeling with Apodaca-Valdez acknowledging deaths resulting from COVID-19 and another tragic loss of two students that touched many in the USI community.

Rosas Mayan recalls the first Dia de Los Muertos event at USI in 2008, a much simpler event with just a window display on the first floor of the Liberal Arts Center. It has evolved into a joyous celebration of life, acceptance of one's own mortality and the remembrance of those who have passed on before us. The key to this celebration is the alter, which students from the Spanish Club and Hispanic Student Union help to build each year.

Dia de Los Muertos began as a traditional Mexican celebration that spread south and north through the Americas. The United Nationals Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) added the holiday to its list of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

Depending on the tradition, family alters can be fantastic displays in cemeteries, a city plaza or in the home. The items on the altar differ according to the population, but do have several items in common: flowers, food and photography.

The Mexican tradition is to use bright orange and yellow marigolds on the altar. Their fragrance is said to lead souls from their burial place to their family's home. The cheerful color of the flowers also add to the celebratory nature of the holiday.

The ancestor's favorite foods, drinks and snacks are placed on the altar as offerings. Pan de Muertos—loaves of breads shaped like a person with marzipan heads embedded in them—also can be found on altars.

Candles serve as a light guiding the ancestors back home.

Animals can make an appearance on a family altar as well. Alebrijes are represented in Mexican folk art as vibrant, fantastical creatures that will resemble dragons, lizards or other animals.

Sugar skulls like the one above serve as a reminder of the final destination of each human being. In their sweetness, they challenge a western concept that death is something to be feared. "We feel the sorrow, the loss of death, but at the same time, we embrace the philosophical aspect of death. You can't escape it. Sooner or later, we all meet it. We look at death with different eyes," said Apodaca-Valdez.

The elaborately cut tissue paper decorations represent the frailty of life.

Both Rosas Mayan and Apodaca-Valdez acknowledge people unfamiliar with Mexican culture can see the holiday as a stereotypical depiction of Latinx culture. It's not a Mexican version of Halloween. Amid an explosion of colors, it embraces and celebrates life and death.

Students, faculty and staff participated in a candle-lit parade on campus. In southern Mexico, candle-lit parades are held in honor of ancestors. Some regions have processions on flower-covered boats during an all-night vigil.

Freshman Caleb Cunningham had taken four years of Spanish language in high school. Coming from a small rural high school, he never had the opportunity to attend a Dia de Los Muertos event. "It was really fun, but what made it special was the joy and pride the students and faculty had in presenting their culture to us," he says.

Junior Xenia Adames Chanis is an Engineering major from Panama. She remembers her great-grandmother during the Dia de Los Muertos celebrations held back home. "It is a smaller celebration in Panama. More intimate. We visit the cemetery and take flowers. My great-grandmother is always in my heart. I have so many wonderful memories of staying at her house. She used to secretly give me and my siblings coffee," she says.

Eva Chung Loo is a Junior Radiologic and Imaging Sciences major from Panama. Although her family lives in Panama as Chinese immigrants, they don't practice Dia de Los Muerta. However, the Chinese culture practices similar customs during holidays like Chinese New Year and the Autumn Festival. "My family always lays out a place setting with food on the family table for the one who passed during the Chinese holidays. In this way, you always have a space for them in your home and family." The Chinese culture also celebrates Ancestor's Day where families visit cemeteries to clean the graves of those passed.

Jessica Carapia-Cortez is a Senior Social Work major and first generation Mexican-American. Her family creates a small stand in their home and add photos of relatives and well-loved pets for Dia de Los Muertos. Originally from Frankfort, Indiana, her family would travel to Indianapolis or Layfayette to buy the marigolds and Pan de Muertos. Last year during the COVID-19 pandemic, she made her own Pan de Muertos. "Dia de Los Muertos is usually a few days. We put out lit candles every day and food and drinks for the past family, the children, teens and adults and pets that are on our stand," says Carapia-Cortez.

Veronica Portillo is a Senior Health Services and Communications Studies major. From English, Indiana, she recalled learning about Dia De Los Muertos in Spanish class, but didn't get to participate in the celebration until she came to USI. As a friend of one of the deceased students who was honored at this year's event, she was a little upset to see his photo on the alter at first. "Death is a sensitive subject, but with Dia de Los Muertos, you can make beauty out of life and death," says Portillo.

The goal of celebrating Dia de Los Muertos at USI is to foster Hispanic/Latinx culture and promote multiculturalism. Rosas Mayan says she has always had support from deans in the College of Liberal Arts, from the early days with Dr. Michal Aakhus, who encouraged her to create a display in one of the cases, to Dr. Melinda Roberts, who stayed for the entirety of this year's event. "This is a student event," she said. "The job of any university is to embrace it's student population and celebrate cultural diversity."

According to Spanish Club president Veronica Portillo, Dia de Los Muertos is one of the most popular events enjoyed by Hispanic/Lantix students and American students. The night ends with fun salsa lessons that replicate the dancing that occurs in the Mexican cemeteries and parades. At this year's event, Daisy Valdez-Perez gave dance lessons to those at the event.

Find out more about Dia de Los Muertos and the USI organizations involved

Appreciate

Credits:

Barbara J. Goodwin