Nov. 1-2 is celebrated in Mexico and parts of Central America as Dia de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, a time to remember and honor departed loved ones and to pull back the veil between the world of the living and the world of the dead. Many Americans know about the Day of the Dead, at least casually, and the joyous, instrument-playing skeleton figures, colorful paper flags and decorated sugar skulls that have come to symbolize the holiday are almost as ubiquitous as the ghosts, pumpkins and bats that serve as our Halloween decorations. Although Halloween and the Day of the Dead are often conflated, and do share some themes, the latter comes from traditional practices in parts of Latin America and is rooted in the culture and religion of those countries.
According to a 2023 report by the Gastón Institute for Latino Community Development and Public Policy at the University of Massachusetts, people of Mexican heritage make up the second-largest group of Latino residents in Cambridge. Immigration from Mexico and parts of Central America began in earnest in the 1980s, when many residents of those areas came to the Cambridge area, among other places, to escape political and economic upheaval. These arrivals tended to settle in neighborhoods of the city that already had substantial and vibrant Latino communities, including The Port, Central Square, Cambridgeport and East Cambridge.
As a reflection of the growing Mexican and Central American population, the Multicultural Arts Center in East Cambridge held its first Day of the Dead celebration in 1989. An article in The Fax newspaper advertising the event noted that “an authentic ofrenda will be in place, following the classic Day of the Dead traditions native to Mexico and Central America. But foreign tradition is best tempered with the local and the up-to-date, or so the arts center believes: The traditional altar will be dominated with a mixed-media tribute to the late Elvis Presley.” From its beginnings, the center’s celebration was intended to blend elements of traditional commemoration with those of contemporary American culture to reflect the diverse and intertwined stories of the city’s residents.
For its second year, in 1990, the center held its Day of the Dead celebration at Mount Auburn Cemetery, where it was cosponsored by the Friends of Mount Auburn and the Mexican consulate and dedicated to Isabella Stewart Gardner. Describing the order of the evening, The Fax noted that “a candlelight procession led by Bambule, the Central American string band, will proceed to the Gardner tomb where artistic offerings will be made in the form of poems, reminiscences and the traditional small mementoes. Along the way, stops will be made at the graves of poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and artist Winslow Homer.” Multicultural Arts Center executive director Otto Erbar is quoted as saying that Gardner was chosen as the honoree for the event because she represents “at this troubled time for public support of the arts, the kind of indefatigable champion of culture which the arts community desperately needs.” Mexican consul general Alberto Campillo remarked that the program was “a way of bringing some of Mexico here and marrying it with some of New England.”
Over the coming decades, the center’s Day of the Dead events continued to blend elements of traditional Mexican and Central American culture with themes and practices more familiar to contemporary Cantabrigians. The center’s celebrations also incorporated other aspects of Latino culture by featuring artistic exhibitions; 2002’s event included a series of photographs by Jaye Phillips that captured weddings and other celebrations in the Mexican states of Oaxaca, Chiapas, Michoacán, Queretaro and the Yucatan. Although the celebrations photographed by Phillips represent a broader range of occasions and seasons of the year, the presence of this exhibit at the center during the Day of the Dead commemoration allowed for a greater understanding of the roots of Mexican religious and cultural celebrations.
Harvard’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology held its inaugural Day of the Dead program in 2003 with music, art, storytelling and opportunities to remember departed loved ones at marigold-covered ofrendas – the traditional altars created to pay tribute to those who have died. The Peabody event is now the most widely known and best attended Day of the Dead program in Cambridge, and for the past decade the museum has partnered with the Amigos School in planning the celebration. Students from Amigos, the city’s dual Spanish-English language public school, collaborate with the museum to design altars of remembrance for the celebration, as well as contributing to the brainstorming process around other elements of the program such as music and crafts.
For the past four decades, the celebration of the Day of the Dead has been a way for Cantabrigians old and new to come together to remember those they have lost and to continue long-standing traditions while forging new ones that reflect their experiences as members of both the Mexican American-Central American and Cambridge communities. Through art, music, processions and mementos, participants have created their own sense of meaning around death, religion and spirituality, and have crafted a set of commemorations that blend elements across time and place.
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