Rutgers expert Regina Marchi explains why the holiday's popularity continues to grow as a spiritual, cultural and commercial celebration
During October in the United States, stores selling Halloween merchandise also are stocking their shelves with Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) decorations, such as plastic marigold garlands and skulls made of sugar painted in vibrant pinks, blues, yellows and greens.
While many Americans are accustomed to seeing the colorful Day of the Dead decorations, some are unaware of how Dia de los Muertos evolved into a popular holiday in the U.S., both as a spiritual and cultural celebration - as well as a lucrative commercial one.
"For Chicano artists in the 1970s, celebrating an indigenous Mexican ritual in an Anglo-dominant country was an act of political resistance as well as an act of cultural pride," said Regina Marchi, a professor of journalism and media studies at the Rutgers School of Communication and Information and author of the award-winning book Day of the Dead in the USA: The Migration and Transformation of a Cultural Phenomenon, published by Rutgers University Press.
Marchi discusses the historic, cultural and political significance of Day of the Dead in the U.S.
Why has celebrating the Day of the Dead become so popular in the U.S. over the past 50 years, particularly with non-Latino populations? Do you think it may one day be celebrated as widely as Halloween?
Many people in the U.S. are drawn to the idea of having an annual event to collectively honor deceased loved ones. It can be grounding, since thinking about the inevitability of death makes people appreciate life more.
Regina Marchi
Professor of Journalism & Media Studies, Rutgers School of Communication and Information
I've asked hundreds of people the same question. The answer I get is usually the same. Besides the colorful nature of the holiday, with its bright orange marigolds and multicolored "papel picado" decorations, and besides the fascination people have with sugar skulls, deep down, many people in the U.S. are drawn to the idea of having an annual event to collectively honor deceased loved ones.
People enjoy creating home or community altars to remember loved ones who have passed away. It can be very cathartic and a way of communicating about family and community histories.
It can be grounding, since thinking about the inevitability of death makes people appreciate life more. I think Day of the Dead is on the way to being almost as widely known as Halloween, given that celebrations now happen in all 50 states.
In your book, you explain that Day of the Dead celebrations are inspired by indigenous Mexican traditions, but the holiday has very different meanings for Mexican communities in the U.S. What are the differences?
The late 1960s and 1970s was a period of radical political activism around the world. A lot of social change was happening.
Ethnic and racial groups who lived for generations as stigmatized minorities were tired of being treated as second class citizens vis-à-vis the mainstream Anglo-American population. They had always been told to assimilate in order to become "real" Americans and were made to feel ashamed of their ethnicity or race.
That changed when many young Americans in the 1970s travelled back to their families' ancestral countries - Italy, Mexico, Ghana and so forth - to rediscover cultural practices, languages and histories they hadn't learned growing up in the U.S.
The term "Chicano" is a self-identifying term used by Mexican Americans who are politically active in social justice issues. While it had roots in the 1930s, the Chicano Movement really took off in the 1970s and continues today. It emerged to confront decades of racism in California and the Southwest, where people of Mexican ancestry had long faced segregation in schools, housing, employment and restaurants as well as harassment and violence.
The Chicano Movement was a political movement for equal rights, but it was a cultural movement that proudly reclaimed Mexican traditions. Celebrating the Day of the Dead was part of that, and my book discusses this process of cultural adoption and transformation. Celebrating an indigenous Mexican ritual in an Anglo-dominant country was an act of political resistance as well as an act of cultural pride.
Public celebrations ... are ritual opportunities to strengthen the community, reinforce collective identities and values and reclaim public space to gain wider recognition.
Regina Marchi
Today, your book remains one of the few scholarly publications to explain how the rise of Day of the Dead celebrations in the United States emerged as part of Chicano Movement activism. How did this history unfold?
In the 1970s, Chicano artists who were born and grew up in the U.S. were interested in reclaiming and celebrating their indigenous Mexican roots. They were tired of the whitewashing of U.S. history. For decades, if Mexican culture was commemorated in the U.S. at all, it was usually the Spanish part of Mexican identity, flamenco dancing, bull fighting or paella, not indigenous Mesoamerican rituals. So, Chicanos travelled to ruralMexico and brought indigenous traditions to the U.S. via the mediums of visual art, public altar installations, street processions, craft workshops, Aztec danza and other community events. They celebrated Day of the Dead in ways that almost nobody in the U.S., including most Mexican Americans, had heard of at that time.
Based on ethnographic observation, interviewing and news analysis over a period of 20 years, my research tells the story of how Chicano artists created the first public, secular Day of the Dead celebrations in the U.S. in 1972. Since then, Chicano renditions of Day of the Dead have recirculated to Mexico, affecting how Día de los Muertos is celebrated there.
You've written that the holiday also provides an example of "the communicative capacity of public cultural rituals in identity construction, community building, education and political protest." Why is this the case and why is it important for students and the American public to understand this?
Public celebrations are always about more than just the stated reason for celebrating. They are ritual opportunities to strengthen the community, reinforce collective identities and values and reclaim public space to gain wider recognition. For communities that have been marginalized, this is especially important, and these celebrations serve as a form of ritual communication that has new meanings in new contexts.
In the case of ethnic celebrations taking place in the U.S., these are often important not only for building community, but also for expressing political messages.
It's important to understand these dynamics because while official state-supported holidays such as Thanksgiving or the Fourth of July serve to promote national unity or patriotism, grassroots commemorations such as indigenous celebrations, Pride parades or Juneteenth, have emerged as forms of resistance to dominant power structures and historical narratives based on colonization, racism, sexism and other forms of injustice.
Understanding the political dimensions of public cultural celebrations helps us see beyond surface-level festivity to understand deeper questions of power, identity, history, inclusion and resistance, which ultimately helps promote critical thinking and respectful engagement with diverse cultures and histories.
