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about scene remember
Dustin L. Dangli, editor Check Thursday’s Pulse for all you need to
features-editor.shorthorn@uta.edu know about Halloween. Read the issue for
Scene is published Tuesday. ways to celebrate on campus and around.
Page 4 Tuesday, October 27, 2009
The ShorThorn
Tradition lives On
Dia de los Muertos approaches
and families prepare to celebrate
By AlAnnA Quillen understand the holiday, find it strange be-
The Shorthorn senior staff cause it’s a celebration of the dead. He said
n ext week, the living will meet the dead people in Mexico are traditionally unafraid
— not with fear, but with honor and of death and see it as deliverance.
respect. “People in ancient times didn’t look upon
Dia de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, death as a dreary or drab kind of thing,”
takes place nov. 2 and 3 each year. During he said. “It’s simply an opening to another
the formal Mexican holiday, families come world where the spirit is maintained.”
together and honor relatives who died. For the holiday, families go to cemeteries
International business sophomore Alma and picnic at loved ones’ graves and remem-
Vasquez has celebrated the holiday since ber family traditions.
she was little. As part of the holiday tradi- “Some people will even stay overnight at
tion, her family builds an altar. The altar is the cemetery with the family,” Vasquez said.
adorned with pictures, candles, flowers and “It’s more like a feast and not meant to be
even the favorite foods and drinks of the de- something scary.”
ceased. neighbors can place pictures of their Susan Gonzales Baker, center for Mexi-
loved ones on the altar. can American Studies director, celebrates
She said the holi- her grandfather
day is important and aunt. She said
because she gets to her family deco-
honor her grandfa- CeleBrATiOns AT uTA rates the altar with
ther, whose death was Center of Mexican American Studies will have photos, artifacts
difficult to overcome. a display of traditional items used in Day of and favorite items
“It’s the one time the Dead celebrations in Mexico on the Uni- associated with
that we all come to- versity Center first floor. loved ones. The
gether and just cel- family then prays
ebrate his life,” she At noon Wednesday on the University Center in front of the altar
said. “So to me, it mall, the Sigma Lambda Beta fraternity, As- during the evening
gives me a sense of sociation of Mexican American Students and meal.
peace knowing he’s in the Latin American Student Organization “every year, I re-
a better place.” will celebrate Dia de los Muertos with free ally look forward to
Undeclared soph- music, food, brief historical information and a celebrating because
memorial ceremony including a parade to the
omore Lira Polanco it’s an opportunity
Central Library mall.
said she also feels at to maintain a con-
peace while celebrat- nection to family
ing memories. She and heritage,” she
makes candy skulls said. “I want chil-
called calaveras and cooks favorite foods of dren to understand death is not an end but
her dead relatives. beginning.”
“I probably won’t remember them every Baker said the holiday is misunderstood
single day but that holiday is especially for outside the culture because people might
them,” she said. find it unnerving or disrespectful because it’s
Douglas Richmond, Latin American his- a celebration of the dead.
tory professor, said Dia de los Muertos, a “It takes a bit of the morbidity out of
historic national holiday in Mexico, began death that we see in other cultures,” she said.
around 900 B.c. before the Spanish coloni- “Death is not just to be mourned but to serve
zation. He said when the Spaniards arrived as an opportunity to celebrate the life of a
in Mexico, they helped incorporate catholi- person someone loved.”
cism into the holiday. That is why Dia de Baker said she anticipates the holiday will
los Muertos occurs at the same time as the continue to be celebrated throughout the
catholic holidays of All Souls’ Day and All country and hopes it will become popular
Saints’ Day. on campus through student organizations.
“According to legend and tradition in “This holiday has a very personal touch
Mexico, ancestral spirits return to a family to it,” she said. “Something that I like to get
home for a visit on that day,” he said. “In across to my children because it’s a different
order for the spirit to know which house to interpretation of the way one copes with
go to, each house prepares an altar and puts death.”
food that’s traditionally made in the home
on it.” AlAnnA Quillen
Richmond said some people, who don’t features-editor.shorthorn@uta.edu The Shorthorn: Meghan Williams
Materials from: Center for Mexican
American Studies