By Lilian Ongelungel
I remember helping my friends at the Foreign Language House cut out intricate designs from heaps of colored tissue paper and how they set up an altar decorated with this papel picado for the Day of the Dead event on campus.
Typically, members of the Foreign Language House volunteer to help coordinate the Day of the Dead event and earn internship credit in Spanish.
But with the emergence of new multicultural groups on campus, the upcoming Day of the Dead festival also unites the house with MEChA (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan, or Chicano Student Movement of Aztlan) and OLE (Organizacion Latinamericana Estudiantil, or Latin American Student Organization), two newly formed multicultural student groups on campus.
The Day of the Dead, or Día de los Muertos, is a traditional Mexican holiday with a rich history dating back to pre-colonial times when the indigenous people would honor their dead. As Spanish conquistadors made efforts to abolish the indigenous rituals, it fell into the cauldron of melting cultures and now coincides with the Christian All Souls and All Saints days in early November.
Today, people celebrate the holiday by preparing food, playing music, setting up altars with decorations in honor of their loved ones, making sugar skulls, lighting candles and placing flowers and garlands on graves.
For some students, the event serves as another campus activity to do. For others, it is a festival that aligns itself just in time for Halloween.
But for many students on campus, the Day of the Dead event incorporates an interactive cultural experience into their college path.
At times, that cultural experience presents a deeper connection between the student and his or her own culture and traditions.
The decision to incorporate MEChA and OLE into the festival only enriches the value of cultural events on campus, such as the Day of the Dead festival, because it provides opportunities for students to share their wealth of knowledge with the community.
We can learn a plethora of things from our peers, so long as we open our minds to what they can offer us.
Although the event will remain a celebration of culture and tradition, the hope remains to bring new faces to this year's festival and enlighten people of the Day of the Dead's history and customs.
Join the Foreign Language House, MEChA, OLE, Multicultural Programs, the Spanish Language Department and ASUP on Thursday, October 29th, from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. to see how their event transpires.
Lilian Ongelungel is a junior organizational communication major
