Most holidays are a time for celebrating and living in the moment, but not every holiday is celebrated by rejoicing and living. Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead is celebrated in Mexican culture and celebrates the lives of late family members, pets, and even celebrities. Spanish teacher, Maria Sanchez Cisneros explains what Day of the Dead is.
“Day of the Dead is a 3-day celebration, where we take the day to celebrate and remember our past loved ones, past family members, and to honor them and keep their memory alive,” Sanchez said.
From a student’s perspective, the Day of the Dead can be used as a time for learning about your family and their values. Junior Barbara Rubio explains what the Day of the Dead means to her.
“To me, it’s a day where we celebrate those who have passed in our family. On the Day of the Dead, I always tend to find myself asking about our relatives who have passed and what their life was like,” Rubio said.
Sanchez noted that celebrating loved ones isn’t always about mourning and being upset, rather, within the culture, it can be quite a beautiful thing. She emphasized how in the United States, people tend to be scared of the topic of death and it can have a very negative connotation.
“I think that in the US, people get really nervous about the talk of death. It’s kind of taboo; the topic of death,” Sanchez said. “However, in other cultures like Mexican culture and Guatemalan culture, it’s not necessarily taboo. If anything it’s a celebration that we still love them and they’re still in our hearts.”
Although the Day of the Dead is not a national holiday, there is still a handful of people who still celebrate it. Rubio details how she feels about people outside of Mexican culture celebrating the holiday.
“I feel like if you understand enough about it, you can do it if you want to, it is genuinely, entirely up to you,” Rubio said.
When people celebrate the Day of the Dead, most people immediately think of sugar skulls and marigolds. But really, the decoration has so much more of a vast spectrum to choose from. Sanchez talks about how she decorates for the Day of the Dead.
“I make an altar every single year at my house. I prepare it a couple of days in advance. I cut up my papel picado personally. A lot of people like to buy the cut-up paper in advance, but I like to make it myself,” Sanchez said.
Sanchez feels that Day of the Dead is an important holiday, not only to the culture it belongs to but it can also serve as a learning experience for others. For students who may not annually celebrate the holiday, it is still important for others to learn about it. Sanchez details why she thinks students should acknowledge the importance of the holiday.
“It’s just a great way to celebrate them and I think students should celebrate it because maybe it would help them change their perspective on the topic of death and help them kind of come to terms with that it doesn’t have to be as sad but if not it can be a great time to think of their past loved ones,” Sanchez said.
Ms. Sanchez also provided how she will expose students to this cultural holiday and its importance. She tells how she plays the movie “Coco” and how accurate the movie is to the culture. She explains how the altars in the movie can link to her student’s own life.
“In my Spanish two class, we make altars. I tell them to pick someone, it can be a person that they knew, a celebrity, it can be their dog, or someone who has passed away that they would like to remember them by. And that way they get to explore with the culture in their own way.”
