After 35 years of honoring the dead, on-campus club La Raza’s annual Dia de los Muertos celebration at the University Student Union ballrooms attracted twice as many people than last year.
“There’s a connection with the people [here],” attendee and senior kinesiology major Osvaldo Frausto said. “We’re all here, living life and remembering the dead together.”
For many senior Latino students, this is their fourth or fifth year in attendance. Several said they didn’t celebrate Dia de los Muertos until college because their high school didn’t celebrate the holiday.
“This is our biggest event for the fall semester,” La Raza historian and organizer for the event Gizela Medina said.
Events for the night began with a procession of about 50 students walking with candles to the Puvungna Indian creation site on campus near Bellflower Boulevard and Beach Drive.
As students gathered in a circle, Cal State Long Beach American Indian Studies professor Craig Stone explained some of the Puvungna history on campus. For instance, “unga” means gathering place and the creation god’s name, Chinigchinich, is not said at nighttime. CSULB officials learned of their Indian history in the ’70s when contractors dug up burial remains.
Stone stopped at three separate places on the 22-acre site. At each stop, he sang traditional Indian songs while students from La Raza tapped large sticks in unison.
After the procession, students walked back to the student union ballrooms where Medina put together a 4-layered, 6-foot-tall alter and a traditional Mexican dish with hominy, pork and red chili broth called Posole.
“The alter had never been very prominent,” Medina said. “But it was very successful [this year]. People asked about it and took a lot of pictures.”
Some items on the alter included marigold flowers to attract the dead, and water and sweet bread to offer for their long journey.
While the 200 attendees struggled to find a seat in the crowded room to eat their Posole, the Aztec drummers and dancers prepared to enter.
As the Aztec beats began, nine Aztec dancers with painted faces, 3-foot long feathers atop their heads and beads like maracas strapped to their ankles pounded the floor, gathering in a wide circle.
The dancers moved like a grapevine motion from left to right, kicking their legs up and sliding the tops of their feet across the floor.
A colorful array of feathers blurred as the dancers spun and twisted their bodies. They squatted and popped back up until finally taking a bow as the last beat hit the wooden drum.
Throughout the hour, one Aztec dancer played the flute and screamed eerily like they were auditioning for a Halloween soundtrack.
They danced macabre for an hour, finishing with crowd participation. Almost everyone in the audience — about 150 people — joined in, forcing the crowd to make an inner and outer circle. They followed the Aztec leader in the middle who shouted in Spanish, “a la darecha,” meaning to the right and “a la izquierda,” meaning to the left. Then, they rushed to the middle, squeezing their shoulders together. By the end, everyone was panting.
Live band Libertadores and a DJ played music until the celebration ended.
Still, most speakers throughout the night emphasized the importance of traditions by speaking Spanish and performing rituals.
Jason Pinzon, one of the three drummers and a freshman Chicano and Latino Studies major, said, “Reviving the culture is most important.”
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