Photos courtesy of Fabi Vargas, Izellah Rainer and Bianca Gil De Lamadrid

The importance of celebrating Día de los Muertos

The Day of the Dead, also known as Día de los Muertos, is a multi-day Latin American celebration that allows people to remember their friends and family members who have passed away. It also allows people of all identities to recognize and appreciate Latin culture.

To honor Día de los Muertos, LSO and Movimiento Estudiantil Chicane de Aztlán (MEChA) partnered with the Multicultural Center (MCC) and the James E. Brooks Library to host a four-day festival.

Business Major and Mariachi del Centro Band Member Eddie Martinez shared how important immigrant culture is to him, and to the CWU community in general. “Immigrants are beautiful, and they make this country better,” Martinez said.

Music Education Major and Mariachi del Central Band Member Luca Castillejo shared why they see these celebrations being so important, stating, “Every culture that you come across, whether it’s Mexican culture, or it’s from the other side of the Atlantic or across the Pacific, all cultures are beautiful and all deserve to be celebrated. If you see them where you live, I wouldn’t shun it. I wouldn’t turn my nose away. I would try to learn and grow from them.”

MEChA Treasurer Luis Mogollan felt that the holiday is “important to celebrate because in modern times, we have really lost that connection between the afterlife and life. A lot of us see the afterlife as something that we ignore.”

Kickoff meeting

The CWU Dia de los Muertos fiesta started with a kickoff meeting on Tuesday, Oct. 28, at 5 p.m. MEChA Alto Pacifico Representative Ximena Rodriguez said that this first phase of the event focused on “creating the miracles, which are a large part of the whole celebration, whether it’s putting them on the tombs, on the gravestones or on your ofrenda.”

“We have paper marigolds being made. We have some sugar skulls being made as well. And then we have some cantarito painting,” Rodriguez said. “As well as some cross-painting going on. We have the face painters.”

In LSO and MEChA’s kickoff presentation, Social Media Coordinator Adamary Martinez-Soltero stated that the holiday is not solely about mourning the loss of family members. Instead, she realized that “it’s a joyful celebration of life that remembers loved ones through music, food and colorful traditions.”

Partnership with Dining

The Partnership with Dining on Thursday, Oct. 30, at 5 p.m. was the second stage of the event. It consisted of a dinner full of Latin-American food. According to MCC Graduate Assistant Rose Montano, at least 100 people participated in the dinner. 

“It’s lovely to see people who are of Latino descent here that’s celebrating their culture, but also those who aren’t of Latino descent, seeing them here and learning more about the culture,” Montano said. “One of my favorite parts is to see so many families are here too, not just students.”

SURC Executive Chef Dayna Oyarzo let her employees know about the event several weeks in advance because she knew that it would take some time and effort to prepare for such an occasion.

“The prep that we did just in labor, our pupusas took about 14 hours of labor to create the pupusas, and then we had another 18 hours of labor to make the guadalajara and tamales,” Oyarzo said.

Oyarzo especially loved helping her student employees make the pupusas because “they really are kind of nostalgic. I make pupusas once a year at Christmas with my family, so it’s a fun activity to sit around in the kitchen, gathering as a family and making these.”

While the participants ate dinner, the Mariachi Band played a few traditional festivity songs. Then, the Folklorico dancers, part of the LSO, performed a few pieces.

“I think the [mariachi] band performed their role as exposing people to the familiar sounds in Mexico, and also providing that little taste of home to people out there who may find it familiar,” Castillejo said.

“The dances we did … were from Velacruz,” Elementary Education Major and LSO Folklorico Dancer Liz Ayonsoto said. “I unfortunately had lost my grandmother a few months back, and I felt like embracing her culture made me even closer to her than she was in her life, as she suffered from dementia.”

Día Celebration: The main event

The third stage, which the MCC staff intended to be the highlight of the festival, involved dancing around the Holmes Dining Room while Los Faraones del Norte played traditional Mexican music.

Additionally, the same festive art activities that occurred at the kickoff also happened at the main event, with one exception: instead of making sugar skulls, participants painted them. The James E. Brooks Library provided the supplies and taught participants how to create paper marigolds.

Starting at 8 p.m., the dancing and crafts went on until the university closed the SURC for the night.

Several students said that they loved everything about the Dia de los Muertos events. For example, Secondary Education and English Literature Student Diana Ramirez said that the celebration “really makes me feel close to home, given that I’m also from Mexico. It’s very homey here. I think it’s beautiful. I’m so glad that people got together to do this.”

Likewise, Calib Lennon, a student with an undecided major, said, “The music is really good. It makes me want to dance. I feel like all the face paint is really cool as well. Everything here is just super awesome.”

Ofrenda Making Workshop

After the night of celebration, LSO, MEChA, and MCC hosted an ofrenda-making workshop on Friday, Oct. 31, at 12 p.m.. LSO President Isamar Sotelo-Ramirez and other members of LSO taught students about the ofrenda, an altar with offerings for the dead when they come to visit you during Dia de los Muertos. Sotelo-Ramirez and LSO set up the event to help teach students about how different cultures celebrate Dia de los Muertos. “We wanted to incorporate a lot of other countries that maybe people never heard of or thought celebrated Dia de los Muertos,” Sotelo-Ramirez said. “Just to let them know Mexico isn’t the only place that celebrates it.” 

For MEChA, the Dia de los Muertos events are about providing a safe space for students. “Central has a high percentage of Latino Students, and from my personal experience … being first generation, being far from home, the homesickness can get to you,” the aforementioned MEChA Treasurer Mogollan said. “No matter who it is, (MEChA) wants to provide cultural events that are relevant to these communities so they feel at home when they might not be too close to home.”