Universit of Minnesota Moment: Day of the Dead

Transcript

[Announcer]: I’m Rick Moore with the University of Minnesota Moments. Today and tomorrow, the Mexican-American community celebrates Day of the Dead. Richard Martinez, assistant professor in the U’s department of Chicano Studies, says the day’s roots go back centuries, before Spaniards arrived in Latin America.

[Martinez]: It has its origins ancient Aztecs, which was modified by Spanish Catholicism and it remains very much part of the culture of Mexico and many Latino communities here in the United States. It originally began as a two month celebration by the Aztecs and the Spanish came and conquered that region of the world and tried to do away with the culture, tried to do away with the tradition that the Aztecs were practicing. And they were unsuccessful and they sort of incorporated that tradition, the Dia de los Muertos of the Aztecs, into what became the normal Catholicism of the time. So, in Mexico, now Dia de los Muertos runs from October 31st through November 2nd.

[Moore]: The modern festivity is a traditional Mexican blend of ancient rituals and introduced Christian features.

[Martinez]: Typically, what you’ll see are altars; we build altars to commemorate our lost loved ones. And those altars will have photographs of those who have passed on and maybe their favorite food offerings and candles and some of them are very elaborate and fancy and some of them are very simple.