Department of World Languages and Cultures

Celebrate 2021 Dia de los Muertos at CSUMB

2021 Visual and Public Art Day of the Dead/ Dia de Los Muertos Observance

Living Altars: Community as Nourishment

About: The Visual and Public Art department is pleased to announce our annual Dia de los Muertos Celebration: Living Altars: Community as Nourishment.  This year's event is an on-line virtual event organized by the Visual and Public Art Department with participation by HSI MAESTROS Project, which will include an on campus, in-person Aztec Dance performance at the Otter Student Union (OSU) main entrance.  Please join us next year for our 25^th Annual Dia de Los Muertos Celebration in our newly renovated exhibition space at the VPA Complex

Note: This year, the CSUMB MAESTROS Program has organized Day of the Events leading up to VPA's Virtual programming, which will culminate in a hybrid in-person and on-line Aztec Dance Ceremony.  See list of auxiliary in-person Day of the Dead events here:  (link disabled, past event)

October 30, 2021

Event Title: Living History: Food as Ancestral Knowledge

A workshop by La Soledad Bakery

• Date:Saturday, 10/30/21
• Time:10-11am
• Zoom Link:  (link disabled, past event)

Workshop Description: Pastry Chef Sandra from Soledad Bakery (Salinas, CA.) takes us behind the counter and into the kitchen to show us how Pan De Muerto or Day of the Dead bread is created. Watch how Pastry Chef Sandra shows us techniques that she learned from her family, and shares with us how food can be a source of ancestral knowledge, connection and tradition – Chef Sandra comes from Oaxaca, a state and city rich with traditions, where Days of the Dead is celebrated as an essential form of spiritual connection and family history. 

About La Soledad Bakery: La Soledad Bakery is a committed team of talented individuals who provide quality bakery, pastries, and pan de Muertos, or day of the dead bread to Monterey, Seaside, Gilroy, Morgan Hill, Half Moon Bay, Santa Cruz, and Salinas. For 17 years, this family of pastry chefs have been continuing the cultural baking traditions of Oaxaca. 

November 2, 2021

VPA 25th Annual Dead/ Dia de Los Muertos Celebration

The Visual and Public Art department is pleased to announce our annual Dia de los Muertos Celebration: Living Altars: Community as Nourishment.  This year's event is an on-line virtual event with in-person participation by HSI MAESTROS Project, which will include an on campus, in-person Aztec Dance performance at the Otter Student Union (OSU) main entrance (Zoom Link below).

• Event Title:VPA 25th Annual Dead/ Dia de Los Muertos Celebration
• Date:November 2, 2021 
• Time:5:30-6:30pm
• Zoom Link:  (link disabled, past event)
• Location:This year's celebration is a virtual event.

VPA virtual program:

• 4-5pm: VPA: face mask decorating demo
• 5:30- 6:00pm: VPA: virtual slideshow of altars created by VPA students
• 5:30-6:30: In partnership with the MAESTROS project, Movimiento Cosmico Aztec Dance Group will perform a ceremony with educational components that address issues of cultural nourishment, survival, and honoring land & ancestors (streamed live from CSUMB)

Aztec Dance performance

• Date:November 2, 2021 
• Time:4-7pm
• Location:Otter Student Union (OSU) main entrance & zoom. 
• Program:  5:30-6:30: Movimiento Cosmico will perform a ceremony with educational components that address issues of cultural nourishment, survival, and honoring land & ancestors.

2020 Days of the Dead/Dias de los Muertos

Cultural Continuity & Living History

Join us as we celebrate our first-ever virtual Dias de los Muertos at CSUMB!

2020 Schedule:

Celebrate Dia de los Muertos at CSUMB

When Dia de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, arrives, family members of departed souls set out water, candles, food and decorated sugar skulls to welcome their lost loved ones. Widely celebrated in Latin America, the day honors the dead as living entities. It celebrates the departed, and helps keep them present in life.

The primary goal of the Day of the Dead here at CSUMB is to provide a community-building experience for students, the campus, and our surrounding communities. The event helps to break down isolation as it brings together in an active arts expression diverse members of our campus community. Because it takes place in a central space, it allows students who might not normally have the opportunity to interact to share in a collective expression of history and memory. The ceremony provides students a chance to learn arts traditions such as making sugar skulls, papel picado (paper cutting), flower arch preparation, and altar construction.

The annual Day of the Dead event includes a processional, large-scale altar, performing Aztec dancers, traditional Mexican refreshments, student artwork, a series of hands-on workshops, inter-disciplinary class presentations, and community youth projects. The event begins with face painting at the Student Center, followed by a candlelight processional with Aztec dancers, drummers, musical performances and folkloric dancers at the community gathering at the main altar at the VPA Complex (Buildings 71 & 72). This event also includes a collaborative altar comprised of work by students in classes across campus as well as altars made by students in the VPA Day of the Dead class. The main altar display provides the campus community with an opportunity to recognize the memory of their loved ones who have passed away and to find a joyful spirit of endurance in a difficult time.

The Day of the Dead celebration is part of an ongoing tradition begun in Meso-American times in Mexico. The traditions come from a cultural practice of honoring the dead through offerings, spectacle, and celebration. This celebration occurs on November 1, and includes altars and spiritual acts of remembrance. Since 1995, VPA has transformed this tradition into a contemporary cross-cultural ceremony of memory. Annually, the event draws between 200-300 participants from across the campus and regionally as a place for family-based gathering.

The curriculum of Day of the Dead offers a cross-cultural approach to community memory and engages the campus in community building. The celebration of this tradition exemplifies the vision of the University, and in particular, global interdependence, ethics, inter-disciplinarity, community service, and cross-culturalism. The event itself is a community-building experience, bringing together youth from our local communities, students, faculty, and staff.

2019 Dia de los Muertos Snapshots:

More About the History of Dia de los Muertos at CSUMB

Dia de los Muertos is a tradition at CSU Monterey Bay started nearly 25 years ago by now-retired Professor Amalia Mesa-Bains. In 2009, KQED, the Public Broadcasting System affiliate in San Francisco, filmed a story on the VPA class once taught by Dr. Mesa-Bains.