Day of the Dead in the USA, Second Edition: The Migration and Transformation of a Cultural Phenomenon (Latinidad: Transnational Cultures in the United States)

Honoring relatives by tending graves, building altars, and cooking festive meals has been a major tradition among Latin Americans for centuries. The tribute, "El Día de los Muertos," has enjoyed renewed popularity since the 1970s when Latinx activists and artists in the United States began expanding "Day of the Dead" north of the border with celebrations of performance art, Aztec danza, art exhibits, and other public expressions.
 
Focusing on the power of public ritual to serve as a communication medium, this revised and updated edition combines a mix of ethnography, historical research, oral history, and critical cultural analysis to explore the manifold and unexpected transformations that occur when the tradition is embraced by the mainstream. A testament to the complex role of media and commercial forces in constructions of ethnic identity, Day of the Dead in the USA provides insight into the power of art and ritual to create community, transmit oppositional messages, and advance educational, political, and economic goals.
 
Today Chicano-style Day of the Dead events take place in all fifty states. This revised edition provides new information about:

• The increase in events across the US, incorporating media coverage and financial aspects,
• Recent political movements expressed in contemporary Day of the Dead celebrations, including #BlackLivesMatter and #MeToo
• Greater media coverage and online presence of the celebration in blogs, websites, and streaming video
• Día de los Muertos themes and iconography in video games and films 
• The proliferation of commercialized merchandise such as home goods, apparel, face paints and jewelry at mainstream big box and web retailers, as well as the widespread proliferation of calavera-themed decorations and costumes for Halloween
• 24 new full color illustrations

 

REGINA MARCHI is a professor in the Department of Journalism and Media Studies at Rutgers University—New Brunswick in New Jersey. She co-authored, with Lynn Schofield Clark, Young People and the Future of News, which won the 2018 Nancy Baym top book award from the Association of Internet Researchers and the 2018 James W. Carey Media Research Award.