Dia de los Muertos Festival fosters community, healing

Last year, when The Unity Council couldn't put on the annual Dia de los Muertos festival in person because of the pandemic, the Fruitvale community felt their losses more acutely, says Itzel Diaz-Romo, interim director of development and communications for the NeighborWorks network organization. This year, the festival in Oakland, California's largest Latinx community is back, with an emphasis on healing.

Dia de los Muertos means Day of the Dead. Also known as All Souls' Day, the holiday, which originated in Mexico, is a time to celebrate and remember loved ones who have died. The festival includes a display of ofrendas, or altars, commemorating family members and, in Oakland, also raising awareness of social justice issues. Falling on Oct. 31 this year, during National Arts and Humanities Month, the festival brings the community together through art and culture.

"One of the main reasons people wanted to have the celebration this year is to honor late loved ones," says Diaz-Romo. "There has been so much loss and tragedy happening in the last year. People wanted to be back to take advantage of this space and have a real community gathering where we could celebrate that we're still here and remember those who are not."

After discussions with the city, The Unity Council, now in its 26th year of hosting the event, decided on a scaled-down festival. All vending will take place in an online market, not in person, and The Unity Council will promote those vendors for the next month. But in-person events include Aztec dancers, art, and low riders. Most of the residents who participate are from the community, and all events are cultural touchstones, Diaz-Romo says. "The idea is for people to use arts and culture as a form of healing and have fun at the same time."

The festival will provide facemasks with the sugar-skull designs associated with the holiday, and a health pavilion including COVID-19 testing and COVID-19 vaccines. Diaz-Romo says the vaccine clinic should be able to accommodate 250 people. 

The pandemic hit the East Oakland community hard, both physically and economically, since so many people who live there are front-line workers. Diaz-Romo reports the community now has a 75% vaccination rate. The Unity Council staff members hope that with culturally competent outreach and culturally sensitive doctors, they can raise the rate even higher. 

The festival highlight will be ofrendas by 20 different artists. Lilia Olsen has been creating ofrendas for seven years. When the pandemic prevented last year's festival, she built one on her patio. "I started doing it after my mother died," shares Olsen, who has since had other family losses, including her sister this year. When people stop to see her ofrenda, they ask about her family and she shares her memories of them. "If you forget them, they'll disappear," she says. "It's good to talk about them and keep them alive, keep their memory alive. This was my healing, learning to do this."
 
Olsen uses flowers, mostly marigolds, along with skulls and crosses that she paints herself. She dresses two calacas – skeletons who sit atop the altar – in her father's mariachi suit and her mother's dress. Always, she incorporates photographs. Members of the community come with photographsof their own loved ones and ask her to include those, too. "They say, 'Can you put my mom or my auntie on your altar this year?'" Olsen says she relates to this year's theme, Curando Corazones, or Healing Hearts. "There's a lot of healing hearts right now. So many people have gone through so much in the last year and a half."

"The Dia de los Muertos festival is a testament to The Unity Council's critical role as an anchor institution for the Fruitvale neighborhood, Oakland, and beyond. We are proud to support them, and many other community development organizations across the county, in leading a comprehensive healing process for a community disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic."