ST. CHARLES, Mo. – From Monday, Oct. 27, to Friday, Nov. 7, the Lindenwood Language Lab, located inside the Lindenwood LARC (Library and Academic Resources Center) in room 11A, celebrated the annual traditions of Día de los Muertos.
Día de los Muertos, in Spanish or “Day of the Dead” in English, is the Mexican holiday that originated over 3,000 years ago during pre-Hispanic times. Día de los Muertos is primarily celebrated on Nov. 2, to honor loved ones who have passed away. This holiday is not to look at it poorly but to honor those who have passed on. Junior Andrea Alvarez is from Veracruz, Mexico. And every year, her family celebrates Día de Los Muertos.
“It’s just like a party honoring those people, and it’s on November 2nd, because it started on November 1st and 2nd, and some portals were open because of the Gods and everything,” Alvarez said. “So that’s why they do it on those dates, and right now in Mexico it’s a big, big party. Everyone has ofrendas, and it’s a very special time for us.”
Celebrations for Día de los Muertos often begin on Oct. 27, whether it is by putting up the ofrenda, or using that day or other days individually leading up to Día de los Muertos to honor pets, children, babies, adults, people who are not remembered, or people who may have died from tragedy.
“Each day, you have to include the elements for the person you are commemorating. Normally, if you have really close friends or stuff like that, you also put the pictures up. My grandmother goes around with the neighbors, and she asks them if they want someone in the ofrenda that she then puts up,” Alvarez said. “It’s basically putting up every single person you want to remember or who someone else wants to remember. It’s not specifically just for pets or family members.”
The elements of Día de los Muertos often include candles, representing light as a guidance for people who have died to see where they need to go to celebrate the party; chocolaté caliente, or in spanish “hot chocolate”, because the holiday is during a time of year when it is becoming colder, but also because chocolaté caliente is big amongst Mexican heritages; and pan de muerte – “bread of death” made of sugar and orange extract and represents a skull with the bones of the dead person, a representation of your loved one, and eaten in commemoration of them.
“In my house, especially my grandmother, always puts an ofrenda in the house. And she puts all the elements that are needed in the ofrenda,” Alvarez said. “We also have a pan de muerto and chocolaté caliente, talk about some stories with the family, take turns and start telling horror stories, and it’s really, really fun.”
This is the first year in a while that Lindenwood’s language lab has celebrated Día de los Muertos, although Spanish Professor Maite Nunez-Betelu, in the past, would have students do altars and ofrendas when she would teach them about the holiday. Professor Nunez was able to assist the language lab in setting up a celebration of the holiday, although it isn’t something her classes and students have worked on this year. Professor Nunez was able to provide the language with things for their ofrenda, which her students would use in the past, and the celebration of Día de los Muertos had, in a manner of speaking, transitioned from Professor Nunez’s class to the language lab.
“I think it went really well. We had a lot of people visit the table, and many of the instructors offered their students extra credit to come visit the table, see the display that we had set up, and learn more about it,” Writing Specialist Jannah Hotchkiss said. “So I think it was very successful, and I think we’d like to continue doing something like that in the future.”
