Day of the Dead: Celebrating our Past, Present, and Future

El Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) is a day of celebration, particularly for the people in Mexico and Central America, and for Mexican Americans in the United States. It is a day to honor and commemorate the lives of the dearly departed and to welcome the return of their spirits.

The tradition of the Day of the Dead is rooted in pre-Columbian and Spanish Catholic ritual customs. Today, this celebration has been increasingly popular among Latinos in the United States. Though many of the traditional elements have remained, the way and where the Day of the Dead is celebrated has changed. However, the unity of life and death continues to be the dominant theme of the art, tradition, and rituals of the annual celebration of the Day of the Dead on November 2, both in Mexico and the United States. 

Pre-Columbian Customs & Beliefs

For pre-Columbian cultures, life and death were not two independent states of being―death was an important part of the life cycle through which new life was created. The Day of the Dead may have also been related to the cyclical nature of agriculture because trees, plants, and crops grow from the ground in which the dead were buried. 

Continue reading from, Honoring Our Ancestors, Smithsonian Latino Virtual Museum Day of the Dead/ Día de los Muertos

The celebration known in Mexico and the United States as El Día de los Muertos or “The Day of the Dead,” is a fusion of Indigenous and Roman Catholic rituals for honoring the deceased. In Mexico and the rest of Latin America (as well as in other areas with large Catholic populations, such as Spain, Italy, France, Portugal, the Philippines, and Haiti), November 1 and 2 are the “Days of the Dead”— the two-day period of All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day.

While All Saints’ Day is officially referred to in Spanish as “El Día de Todos los Santos,” and All Souls’ Day “El Día de las Animas,” they are conceptualized as one holiday throughout Latin America, with both days implied in popular expressions such as “Todos Santos” (All Saints’ [Day]) or “El Día de los Difuntos” (The Day of the Deceased).

The observance of Day of the Dead traditions across Latin America for more than 500 years makes this celebration a point of cultural continuity for peoples of diverse Latinx ancestries living as racialized minorities in the United States. Forty percent of the U.S. Latinx population have ancestry from Latin American countries other than Mexico, and as new Latinx immigrant groups participate in Day of the Dead activities, they manifest their regional traditions, transforming celebrations into pan- Latinx events. Read more Day of the Dead in the USA, Chapter 1: An Ancient and Modern Festival 

Marchi, Regina M. Day of the Dead in the USA, Second Edition: The Migration and Transformation of a Cultural Phenomenon. Rutgers University Press, 2022. Project MUSE, https://muse.jhu.edu/book/102467.

Because the Day of the Dead is an event with which people of various Latin American backgrounds can identify, its celebration in the United States brings together ethnically and racially diverse populations who, whether recent immigrants or native-born U.S. citizens, may face political, social, or economic marginalization by the mainstream society. Rituals of altar making, walking together in processions, holding vigils, and related communal activities can stimulate feelings of empathy and solidarity that create a sense of “ imagined community” or “horizontal comradeship among people who have never met” (Anderson 1991). These celebrations serve as cultural bridges that help increase understanding and exchange among diverse Latinx and also between Latinx and non-Latinx populations.

Public celebrations are one of the primary methods through which Latinx imagined community is constructed and sustained in the United States (Rosaldo and Flores 1997; Cadavál 1991; Sommers 1991). The cultural identity that is exhibited and reproduced during Day of the Dead celebrations illustrates anthropologist Renato Rosaldo’s concept of “cultural citizenship”— a phenomenon whereby people organize their values, practices, and beliefs about their rights based on a sense of cultural belonging rather than on their formal citizenship status. Cultural citizenship develops during a range of public activities and performances through which historically oppressed populations can exert their place within the larger civic arena.

Read more, Day of the Dead in the USA, Second Edition: The Migration and Transformation of a Cultural Phenomenon, Chapter 4, Ritual Communication and Community Building pp. 68-80

Marchi, Regina M. Day of the Dead in the USA, Second Edition: The Migration and Transformation of a Cultural Phenomenon. Rutgers University Press, 2022. Project MUSE, https://muse.jhu.edu/book/102467.