Heart and Soul of Day of the Dead

All of them were working for the dead — specifically, the dead who will be honored during the sixth annual Dia de los Muertos celebration at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery on Saturday. More than 16,000 people are expected to pay tribute to their deceased loved ones with offerings of food, water, flowers, photographs and art, or to simply enjoy the traditional Mexican cuisine and Aztec dance performances.

If anything indicates the cross-cultural rise of the Day of the Dead, it is Hollywood Forever. Six years ago, when the cemetery hosted its first Dia de los Muertos celebration, the event drew just 200 people and was one of a handful of public Day of the Dead celebrations in the Los Angeles area. But in recent years this traditionally Mexican commemoration has been adopted by people of all stripes, who now celebrate it at art galleries and community centers, public parks and private house parties.

Some observe the holiday for its original purpose — to honor and celebrate the dead. Others embrace it as a hip Halloween alternative — something that is different and more meaningful than costumes and trick-or-treating. Still others use it as a means to immerse themselves in Latino culture.

"Part of the reason why it's taken hold here and not only in communities of Mexican descent is because it fills the need for connections that doesn't have a very obvious outlet in the general American culture," said Juanita Garciagodoy, a Mexican scholar and author of "Digging the Days of the Dead." "It's an excuse to talk about the dead. It's like bringing your memories and your love for the dead out of the closet and into the public conversation."

Other than Memorial Day, there isn't a tradition of remembrance in the United States. Culturally, death is viewed as an end, so it is kept at a distance by many. To Garciagodoy, it's a fear related to the Protestant values upon which the country was founded — self-reliance, self-will and the possibility of changing one's lot.

"This idea that you can pull yourself up by your bootstraps. You can be born in the ghetto and become president of the country. It seems to me that some of those very American clichés are tied a little bit to a sense almost of immortality," she said.

"There's something in the belief system that fools us into thinking that things like death are optional. Obviously we have lots of experience telling us that's not true, but one way to keep the myth alive is to avoid cemeteries, to avoid talking about death, not to be present when somebody dies."

For some Americans, celebrating the Day of the Dead begins to shatter that mythology, allowing people to celebrate the deceased loved ones in their own families as well as other lost lives.

"With the times we live in and the state of war and a lot of anger, a lot of people are embracing this tradition to spread love and convey hope and to come together," said Celine Mares, co-founder of the Hollywood Forever event, which features children's workshops and traditional food, dance and music, in addition to multiple altars.

Throughout the eight-hour fest, visitors can add their own mementos to community shrines or simply wander among the 100-plus personal altars, which are assembled on foundations as different as small fold-up tables, fabric-draped cardboard boxes and 15-foot structures specifically built for the event.

Pictures of the dead are only one form of offering, or ofrenda, at these altars. Laid out as a means of honoring the dead and summoning their spirits, ofrendas often include yellow marigolds, symbolizing the beauty and fragility of life; skeletons, or Calaveras, engaged in activities the deceased enjoyed while living; pan de muerto, a special bread for the occasion; and the deceased's favorite foods, drinks and personal items. Copal incense is burned to summon the spirit to the ofrenda. Candles light the way.

The Day of the Dead dates at least 3,000 years back to rituals practiced by the indigenous peoples of Latin America, such as the Aztecs and Mayans. A month long celebration, El Dia de los Muertos, as it came to be known, used to take place in what is now the month of August. It was condensed and moved to Nov. 1 and 2 after Spanish conquistadors arrived in Central America in the 16th century, forcefully converting the locals to Catholicism and aligning the festival with the Catholic All Saints and All Souls days. That remains the case in Mexico today, with the commemoration of deceased children on All Saints Day (Nov. 1), and deceased adults on All Souls Day (Nov. 2).

South of the border, Day of the Dead is celebrated a lot differently. Intimate and family-oriented, the celebrations take place in cemeteries, on the actual graves of those who have died. Here in the U.S., the celebration is more public, and more of a party. It's about the living having fun, as much as honoring of the dead. Part of it is because of Dia de los Muertos' proximity to Halloween. It is also because many people who live here do not have relatives who are buried here. Even if they did, almost no cemeteries allow ofrendas on the graves. Even Hollywood Forever clears them away after a single night to avoid offending Sunday worshipers who may not understand or embrace the Day of the Dead.

Dia de los Muertos is the second-largest Mexican American holiday after Cinco de Mayo, and to some the distinctions are blurring as Dia de los Muertos evolves into a means of celebrating Latino heritage as much as commemorating the dead. While all Dia de los Muertos celebrations involve at least some traditional aspects — i.e. ofrendas, Calaveras and traditional foods such as sugar skulls and pan de muerto — many of them don't even take place Nov. 1 and 2 and are overshadowed by a larger agenda.

"Dia de los Muertos is becoming a very good tool for teaching an entry kind of understanding to Latin culture," said Luis Ituarte, coordinator of the Dia de los Muertos event Nov. 2 at Barnsdall Art Park. "It's very easy for teachers since it's not strictly a religious thing. It's more of a spiritual thing.... Being so close to Halloween, they can say beautiful things happen in both cultures, and it's about the same thing: the spiritual and the fears."

Sponsored by the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, the Barnsdall event includes 36 altars, created by artists and members of the community. It also includes poetry readings and a mask-making workshop for children.

The Olvera Street Merchants also offer children's workshops at the Old Plaza Firehouse near the El Pueblo de Los Angeles Historic Monument downtown. Open to school groups for the last 12 years, they started Oct. 12 this year and run three times a day, three days a week through Nov. 2.

On one recent morning, a group of elementary school students sat around tables coloring plaster skulls with markers and paper masks with crayons.

"Normally you would do sugar skulls, but sugar is kind of messy for them to take back to school, so we try to do something more permanent they can take home that's still Day of the Dead related," said Valerie Hanley, an Olvera Street merchant who was running the workshop with a class of fourth-graders from the Accelerated School in South L.A.

Marc Prado is a teacher at the school, which he says is roughly 50% Latino and 50% black.

"They've got to learn about each other's cultures," Prado said. "One of the things we're trying to do is expose each other to both cultures because they're living together, going to school together."

Self Help Graphics & Art in East L.A. has had the greatest influence on how Day of the Dead is celebrated in and around Los Angeles — more publicly, in the street and with lots and lots of art. The art center, which has offered educational classes and hosted art shows, closed earlier this year, but it is temporarily reopening to put on its long-running Day of the Dead event.

The annual celebration began in 1972 and featured a procession of costumed and painted participants in an almost Mardi Gras-esque affair. This year, the costumed procession kicks off from the intersection of Cesar E. Chavez Avenue and Lorena and Indiana streets and lands at Self Help Graphics with a festival of art and food.

"The idea was to have a uniquely Chicano holiday that commemorates and celebrates our culture," said Armando Duron, Self Help Graphics' current president of the board. "At the beginning of our civil rights struggle, it was hard for us to identify with a lot of the traditional American holidays.

"There are different ways of celebrating spirit, and the attempt here is through the celebration and commemorating of death. It's celebrating the Chicano spirit — that we're going to go on," Duron added. "We're a people that can endure and will endure. Underlying is just a notion that not even death will stop us."

Self Help Graphics' influence has been vast. What started as a somewhat politicized means of celebrating Dia de los Muertos specifically and Latino culture as a whole has largely shaped how the Day of the Dead is celebrated in L.A. — from the Hollywood Forever event to the annual Festival de la Gente at the 6th Street Bridge in Boyle Heights.

Sponsored by the city of Los Angeles, the Sixth Annual Festival de la Gente bills itself as the world's largest Dia de los Muertos event. About 70,000 are expected for Saturday's all-day family event featuring children's craft workshops, giant papier-mâché puppets, a drum circle, an art show and lots and lots of music.

"Festival de la Gente means festival of the people, and that's exactly what it is. We open it up to the public. We're celebrating Dia de los Muertos, but it's really in a different kind of modern tradition," said Festival de la Gente founder Tony Dominguez.

"Day of the Dead is the only holiday that bridges the gap between people," he said. "There's so many different minorities and other races celebrating this, and it's really bringing the city together. It's one of the only holidays that has the potential to grow."