IAA’s Day of the Dead Celebration
Written by Violeta Vilchis, Elian Rangel, & Stella Signorelli
On Nov. 1, the IAA Latino Student Union (LSU) celebrates Day of the Dead, a traditional Mexican holiday that honors and remembers their deceased loved ones. The LSU organizes an event for others on campus to participate in with food, music, and an altar with photos of those they want to remember.
While Day of the Dead is considered a multiday holiday with different days having specific purposes, it is often mainly celebrated from Nov. 1-2. The purpose of this holiday is to pay respects and celebrate friends, family members, and pets who have died. One of the main traditions associated is building home altars, known as ofrendas and decorating these altars with photographs, sugar skulls, cempasuchitl flowers, pan de muerto (bread of the dead), candles, incense, and papel picado. The favorite food, drinks, and belongings of the deceased are also brought for them to enjoy during their visit. Families also visit cemeteries and decorate their loved ones’ graves to honor them. As well, the holiday is celebrated on a community-wide scale with dressing up as catrinas—a symbol of death represented by a well dressed skeleton woman—and having regional music, parties, parades, and performances.
While the current version of Day of the Dead has influence from Spanish Catholicism, the roots of the holiday go all the way back to pre-Hispanic Mesoamerican cultures and Indigenous practices. Long before the Spanish conquistadors invaded, there was already a two-month long spiritual holiday originally intended to celebrate Mictēcacihuāt (Mic-teh-kah-SEE-waht-l): the goddess of the dead and queen of Mictlān, the underworld in Aztec religion. During colonization, the Spanish brought Catholicism and forced many of the Natives they conquered to convert. These practices would blend with the Indigenous traditions and create the Day of the Dead as we know it today.
For the event, Day of the Dead decorations were provided by the Dennison team, a cempasuchil garland made in the R. B. Annis Botanical Lab was provided, as were personal items and printed photos of members’ deceased loved ones. LSU promoted the event using posters illustrated by Visual Arts senior Stella Signorelli.
The event itself was lively. Having been moved to Dennison because of the weather, attendees were able to enjoy all the activities available in the comfort of the indoors. Some of these activities included adding a sticky note with the name of someone a visitor wished to remember on the cork board next to the ofrenda, getting face paint to look like a calavera (a decorative skull associated with the day of the dead), watching The Book of Life by Jorge R. Gutierrez in the gym court, and eating tacos provided by TC Latino.
On the event, the Vice President of the Latino Student Union, Stella Signorelli, had to say: “It was a little rough at first…, but we worked around it. Everyone who came to help set up did their part, and the people who came to participate were respectful and kind.”
“I’m glad that there’s a place at Interlochen to be able to celebrate such important holidays,” Stella continued, “even if they’re not traditionally ‘estadounidense’ (United-States-esque).” She then added, “This holiday means a lot to [many] people and we want to share that meaning with others, even if they are unfamiliar with the holiday itself. I think we were successful in that regard.”
The event was an overall success for those who came and will continue to be celebrated in upcoming years!