Manos a la Obra: Mini-Altar History

Hi everybody, thank you so much for joining us! My name is Sheridan, I work here at the Long Beach Public Library and today I’ve got a very dear colleague of mine; super knowledgeable, and super you know into traditions and culture and la belleza de la tradition latina, indigena, todo lo que es Latinoamérica. So Luisa, thank you so much for being here with us and gracias por acompañarnos Do you want to introduce yourself a little bit? Sure, thank you Sheridan! Muchas gracias, muchas gracias a toda la communidad por estar aqui con nosotros. Thank you for all to all the community for being with us here today. Very very special and very heavy, I feel, “dia de los muertos” this year. First, if it’s okay, I would like to start by just acknowledging the land that we’re on.

So here in Southern California especially, where we are we 01:09 - in Long Beach we are in Pavunga and Tongva land. So I just want to honor the indigenous peoples and the land that is occupied by us and I won’t go too much into that, but it’s important that we acknowledge the land, and the history, and the ancestors, especially for a program such as this. So thank you i’m looking forward to today! Cool yeah! and it’s super important especially entering the month of November being National Native American Heritage month you know obviously we should celebrate that heritage all year long, but specifically in November I think that it’s it’s important to highlight that. So today we’re going to be talking about the history of Dia de los Muertos and so I’ll start off with the fact that you may not know this but Dia de los Muertos is actually a super ancient holiday that’s been celebrated for over 3,000 years! Some people theorize– some people say that it started with the Olmecs that sort of progenitor civilization in Latin America and some people say that it’s even older than the Olmecs. A little bit later on sort of after sort of you know the Olmecs and the Toltecs and the Teotihuacanos, when we get to the Mexica, who are the Aztecs, they would actually have rituals and ceremonies where they would hold processions with food and music and dancing around a sacred tree. And that tree sort of symbolized life.

At the end of the two-month period, because back then it was 02:46 - a two-month celebration during the months of July and August. they would actually chop the tree down to sort of symbolize death. From those ashes they would use to light you know different fires, or even some of like the incense and stuff that they would do for the the ofrendas and the altares. So it was kind of this cyclical ceremony. During the the two-month period, they would hold the processions, in the meantime they would also have altares for their loved ones to visit them where they would have food and all kinds of other stuff. Do you want to tell us a little bit more about the altares and the ofrendas? Sure! So the altar is really a microphone of sorts to communicate with the spirit world.

And so because indigenous peoples of the Americas, 03:40 - in particular we’re talking about the indigenous tribes of Mexico, death is acknowledged as very much a part of life so it’s the other side of life and it’s nothing to fear, or to feel a lot of anxiety about. It’s in the cosmology it’s more of like a continuation and so because we’re in the spirit world we can’t necessarily know what’s on the other side, but there are various ways that our ancestors and peoples of you know, the tribal peoples– indigenous peoples of the Americas did communicate with the spirit world with their ancestors and whatnot. So for the altar there is always usually pictures like you can see this altar behind me it’s an example of our family altar that my sister made there are pictures of our ancestors they’re calaveras sugar skulls there’s favorite foods behind me you see there’s some mole there’s some coca-cola and beer, tomatoes and popcorn, and then what we’ll get into a little bit more is like a syncretism you could see here with the Virgin Mary and crucifix those kinds of things as well. So in addition to to these elements here there are candles there’s copal usually. To make an altar I know an elder told me that it’s necessary to put four elements of water, fire, earth, and air.

05:32 - And so there are different ways to symbolize that depending on what we have at hand. I think that that’s it’s kind of people can take creative creative freedom over making their altar with the things that they have on hand. Another thing that is very traditional to do is to clean the grave site of the of your loved one during these days. And so you clean it off from the year and add fresh flowers fresh candles it’s also could be customary to dine there so have dinner bring food and eat have like a picnic there. As well as make pan de muertos and so I think, I don’t know if this one has it but maybe i’m sure you’ve seen it it’s kind of like a a human figure in the in a bread a loaf of bread and that again is is very customary to see.

06:41 - Yeah it’s interesting that you bring up syncretism, because that’s kind of the next step right in in it went from this completely indigenous tradition to after the invasion of the Spanish they decided that in order to sort of help them Christianize they were gonna sort of you know lay over the indigenous rituals in July and August with um Catholic holidays All Saints and Souls Day on November 1st and 2nd. So they took these rituals that were sort of you know remembering the dead and remembering our past, and put them underneath these these Catholic holidays. And so the celebration actually went from two months– and that’s two Mexican months which are periods of 20 days, so a 40-day celebration. It went to two days which are now November first and second. And they overlaid sort of you know Catholic imagery like saints and the Virgin Mary and cross, crucifixes and all that.

All that kind of stuff over over what was already there. You know really cool though that a lot of the rituals I mean survived in a very similar way to the way that uh the Mexica and their ancestors were celebrating them you know with cempasuchiles, the marigolds that are behind me, candles, copal, bread, and food and dining and feasting and remembering the dead in a way that’s not sad it’s not it’s not morbid it’s not melancholy, but you know sort of holding a party for them you know to invite them back to to be for a couple of days, for a few hours. Do you want to tell us a little bit about some of your experiences with Dia de los Muertos a little bit more closer to the modern day? Sure, yeah I was just thinking about this holiday and how before when I was younger it wasn’t that celebrated. So – and I grew up in the 80s pretty much, 90s, I’m in my 40s. So back then it wasn’t that– I know I’m so, I look so young– back then it wasn’t really as popular as it is now. It didn’t really hit the mainstream.

Although if i’m not mistaken in the 1980’s the artist 09:13 - Renee Yanis through his involvement and I don’t know, I don’t want to like give wrong information. But he was very involved, with the Galleria de la Raza in San Francisco. And he was one of the main major Chicano artists of that time that popularized the day of the dead uh processions, altars, and rituals in the United States because in San Francisco Mission District there existed, not so much anymore there are people still holding on resisting gentrification, there were a lot of migrants from Latin America. A lot of people from Mexico from Oaxaca, from El Salvador, as well Guatemala. A lot of artists were there at the time, additionally he began this uh yearly procession and festival of sorts and it grew year after year until you know the last I grew up in the bay area and um one of the last times I went to a procession it was it was just crazy.

It was very, very full people of all walks of life 10:49 - And it’s just so different because in my house I didn’t like I grew up Catholic and there wasn’t that opening to do anything that was quote unquote considered pagan. So it’s interesting I mean I think that it would be remiss if we didn’t touch upon like some of the the like criticisms, or conflicts, attention, the cultural tension that exists between indigeneity and mexicanidad or assimilation. I just I want to mention that because it it speaks to the diversity of of peoples and of practices that exist within the mexican, or latino, or latina, latinx communities. It’s very diverse, not everybody celebrates this, and that’s that’s okay! You know we’re all different and, but it’s, it is interesting to understand a little more history as to why. And so that begins to break down um assumptions and maybe like misunderstandings.

12:07 - There’s no worshiping of any, you know gods or anything like that, it’s it’s purely to spend time with our ancestors. who are special to us. Yeah totally! I like that you bring that up, yeah because people have um sometimes a notion that um if you’re from Latin America whether that be Guatemala where Dia de los Muertos is also celebrated in its own way, and that you everybody who comes from there has the same traditions, eats the same foods, speaks the same languages, has the same cosmology, right. It’s just like everything, it’s a spectrum and we have people who have maintained their culture, and their traditions, and identify as indigenous, and come from this place geographically, but also and then you have people who have assimilated a tiny bit, maybe assimilated a little bit more. Maybe people who are completely identified as Mestizo such as myself.And then people who identify more as what you would say European, but they’re sort of like transplants right? They live in Mexico, they live in Latin America, but they’re culturally linguistically you know they’re European and and celebrate a little different grade of you know, maybe– my house, for example, we only started celebrating Dia de los Muertos in the last couple years because we’re from Tijuana where you know it’s basically the U.S., but south of the border.

So we we didn’t 13:40 - really have any traditions like this growing up in my house for sure until until just recently. Yeah, it’s interesting I think it’s also important to mention that there are also within the diversity of people of our you know cultural background there’s also Chicanos or– I know it’s not really like a popular identity right now but there or not as much as it used to be. I think it’s because um maybe generationally, they’re I don’t know there isn’t a whole lot of what do I want to say, understanding of what that term means as well. so to be Chicano means that you are in between two worlds. You are U.S. born– or yeah U.S. born. Some most of the time, but you’re like first- generation second-generation.

You identify with and recognize and honor the indigenous ancestry. You try to elevate that as much as possible. It’s difficult because as people in diaspora um we can’t really know– we can’t really like claim, “oh I’m from this tribe or that tribe” I think that– I’m sure people in the community would have you know a lot of information and to like further this discussion so I just really encourage I just I really also want to say that I like to encourage like community dialogue, and community community knowledge, knowledges, so if– or when this video comes out, if people would like to comment down below in the comment section more on this topic of either Day of the Dead, how you celebrated your rituals, how you identify, and what that means to you, in relationship to these new kind of more popularized ways that latinidad is seen in the United States. I think that would be a really valuable conversation for us to have and what better place than the library to you know start those conversations as a community. Yeah especially now that it’s you know with movies like the Book of Life and Coco.

16:37 - It’s every year it seems like it’s even more impression out there people who aren’t necessarily from you know Latin American roots are beginning to celebrate it. To me I think that’s super cool! You know, I mean you’re sort of being and appreciating somebody else’s culture and that can be a tool for your own, you know introspection about your cultural practices and how maybe you honor your ancestors. Or to be a tool for others I think to look to their own past and be with the people that they love who’ve gone is super cool, I think.So I think we’ve had a pretty cute conversation here. I want to say, you know, to everybody thank you for joining us! You know, if you have– you know, if you want some more information about the Dia de los Muertos feel free to look in the library’s catalog, put some stuff on hold, watch some movies, watch this video you know which you already have if you’re seeing this part.

17:44 - Comment down below and then click on the next video to see how to construct your miniature altar! Don’t forget to share your altar with us on social media by tagging us or even by commenting on this video and letting us know what you thought about our little conversation here. Thank you again Luisa for joining us I don’t know if you want to say any words of goodbye. Of course! Well thanks for having me, if you haven’t seen me around the library it’s because I’m a full-time grad student in a library program right now so in some way shape or form I’ll be back and doing good work in the community so I look forward to seeing all the regulars and new faces at some point in the future! So thank you, I honor your ancestors and you know I just want to send all of you a lot of, a lot of love and support and strength during these times! Because we’re all going through it and you’re not alone, tell the library what you need because the library is here to serve the community! It doesn’t exist without the community, the community is the heart of the library! So thank you very much and yeah let’s keep, let’s keep living our lives on this side! Okay well yeah, thank you for joining us! Click on the next video to start building your mini altar and like I said, you know, keep talking to us! Like we said, keep chatting with us, letting us know what you need, and be sure to tag us in all those photos that you upload to Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook of your mini altar! We’ll see you in the next video, adios! .