Thousands expected at Día de los Muertos fest; Los Lobos headlines
LOS LOBOS HEADLINES Self Help Graphics & Art’s 53rd annual Día de los Muertos Celebration.
Photo by Piero F. Giunti. Courtesy of Los Lobos
By Helene Seifer
Two Grammy award-winning groups, East Los Angeles favorites Los Lobos and the L.A.-based La Santa Cecilia, with their pan-Latin folk music traditions, will headline Self Help Graphics & Art’s 53rd annual Día de los Muertos Celebration Sat., Nov. 7, in Boyle Heights. This colorful event, meant to honor the memory of our ancestors, is one of the oldest and most well-attended in the country. Over 10,000 celebrants are expected to attend.
Although Mexican immigrants to this country held private religious practices to honor their dead, public festivals did not become popular until the 1970s, when the Chicano Movement reclaimed the holiday as a point of cultural pride. Self Help Graphics & Art, a community arts center which incorporated as a nonprofit in 1973, was instrumental in spreading this vision in California. In addition to presenting the Day of the Dead celebration, SHG is dedicated to the production and distribution of prints and other graphic media by Chicana/o and Latinx artists and reaches over 35,000 individuals yearly with free classes and other events that uplift the community. They are also home to one of the largest repositories of fine art prints by Chicana/o and Latinx artists. SHG is currently in the last phase of fundraising to complete the renovation of their home in Boyle Heights, in front of which this year’s Día de Los Muertos will take place.
CELEBRATION attire and face paint.
Photo by Rafael Cardenas
Courtesy of Self Help Graphics & Art
The celebration will kick off at 2 p.m. with a colorful procession of Aztec dancers leading celebrants a few minutes’ walk from Mariachi Plaza to where the block party-style celebration is based. Besides musical performers, there will be a storytelling stage, community altars of remembrance and resistance, face painting, food vendors, and a marketplace with local artists’ and artisans’ wares. Throughout the day SHG teachers will conduct workshops for making paper lanterns, jewelry boxes, and miniature altars.
This year, in honor of the country’s 250th anniversary, SHG’s Day of the Dead is presented in collaboration with the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, which will run oral history stations to capture community stories, and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Latino, which will hold drop-in crafts workshops. The partnership is part of the Smithsonian’s “Of the People: The Smithsonian Festival of Festivals,” which aims to showcase how communities remember their loved ones.
Día de los Muertos promises to be a swirling delight of color, music, crafts, costumes, and local food, but SHG Executive Director Paulina Flores hastens to remind us that, “This is a time of reflection and a place where we can come together in community to honor our ancestors and remember our loved ones and the causes close to our hearts.”
Día de los Muertos Celebration; Sat., Nov. 7; 2 p.m. Procession from Mariachi Plaza, 1831 E. 1st St.; 3 to 10 p.m. Music and activities at 1300 1st St., Boyle Heights. Register for free tickets at selfhelpgraphics.eventbrite.com.
Category: Entertainment
