How Día de Los Muertos Continues to Evolve

KQED's Forum

KQED

Politics, News, News Commentary

4.6 • 656 Ratings

🗓️ 31 October 2025

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Orange marigolds, sugar skulls, skeleton face paint, and altars lined with photos and candles have become familiar elements for commemorating Day of the Dead, the ritual practice of honoring the deceased that has become a cultural phenomenon. Many of the traditions go back thousands of years to the indigenous peoples of Mexico, but others have roots in the United States, where the some of the first Día de los Muertos celebrations took place in 1972 with an altar in front of the Galería de la Raza in San Francisco’s Mission District. We’ll talk about the essence of this holiday and how the traditions, iconography and meaning continue to evolve. Guests: Liv Styler, artist and writer; her piece, “Memento (Me)mori(as),” is part of the SOMArts exhibit "Día de Los Muertos 2025: We Love You" Luisa Navarro, boutique owner, Mexico in My Pocket; author, "Mexico's Day of the Dead" Rio Yañez, artist and curator, co-curator, "Día de Los Muertos 2025: We Love You" at SOMArts Dr. Belinda Hernandez Arriaga, executive director and founder, ALAS, Ayudando Latinos A Soñar; licensed clinical social worker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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0:30.7	Transgender kids have been in the headlines a lot recently, but they rarely get to tell their own stories.
0:36.6	Join us on the California Report
0:38.4	magazine for a limited series called Love You for You. We'll listen to trans and non-binary kids
0:44.2	talk with the adults in their lives about what it means to thrive with love and support.
0:48.9	Thanks for letting me be who I am. Thank you for letting me be your parent and for letting me love you.
0:55.5	From KQED, find the California Report magazine wherever you get your podcasts.
1:03.0	From KQED.
1:05.6	Welcome to Forum. I'm Alexis Madrigal.
1:08.3	We're talking this morning about the Mexican and even more broadly Latino tradition of Dia del
1:14.1	Mourthos or the Day of the Dead. I'm personally fascinated by this tradition, not because it has super long roots in my own family, but what the evolving tradition of the celebration says about the changes between Mexican Americans and Mexicans, as well as
1:29.7	within each of our country's Latino communities. I think a lot of conversations about Did
1:35.3	De Los Mortos get flattened into a story about continuity with indigenous and rural Mexican
1:40.3	tradition when, at least in Northern California. The story is also about Chicano inventiveness
1:47.3	and artistry, drawing on, but also reinventing a much longer set of ancestor rituals. And that
1:54.4	happened during a moment of profound cultural reawakening that came in response to marginalization
2:00.5	by the mainstream of American
2:01.9	culture, which might hold some lessons for us today in our own political climate. Here to help me
2:09.2	work through all this, we've got a few different folks. We've got Luis Navarro, who is a boutique
2:14.5	owner and author of Mexico in my pocket.
	...

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