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Altars at CSUSM honor dead
EVAN GRAHAM
For the North County Times
SAN MARCOS ---- The spirits of the dead were invited to congregate with the
living at Cal State San Marcos on Thursday during the university's annual Dia de
los Muertos celebration, or Day of the Dead.
The traditional Mexican festival, in which villagers gather in the center of town and build ofrendas, or altars, for their dead loved ones is more "like an implosion, than an explosion" said CSUSM Hispanic literature and world language professor Carlos von Son on Thursday.
"The implosion comes when the people gather together to celebrate with the
dead, but it doesn't end there," von Son, 35, said.
"'Esos Dias' (Those Days)," an original poem von Son read for participants in
the campus festival, ends with a description of the explosion: "Y los vivos que
regresan a sus casas, y los muertos tambien," or "the living return to their
homes as well as the dead."
As part of the celebration, participants in Dia de los Muertos invite the
animas, or souls, of their dead loved ones back to the realm of the living by
decorating the ofrendas with things the dead enjoyed while they were living such
as food, candy and personal items. Photographs and other images of the departed
are typically placed on the altars.
Candles are used to guide the spirits to their living relatives, as well as the
scent of incense and zempasuchiles, or marigolds, the flowers traditionally used
for the altars.
Food offerings are often placed on the altars so the spirits can take their
essence with them, von Son said.
About 50 such ofrendas were set up on tables during CSUSM's public festival,
held at Palm Court, and according to organizer Linda Amador of the university
counseling office, most altars were team efforts of about 100 festival
participants.
An overwhelming majority of the altars were constructed by students, many as
class assignments.
Amador, 52, who established CSUSM's annual Dia de los Muertos festival in 1994,
set up her own altar for her fiance, who died of lung cancer two years ago.
"He used to help me with Dia de los Muertos," she said. "And when we knew he
was going to die, he said to me, 'I know that this year you'll have an altar for
me.'"
One of von Son's favorite altars was a black one that 25-year-old Arwen Swink, a
Spanish/social science major made for her grandparents.
"It's very simple," von Son said. "You see the tin skeletons and the traditional
arrangements of the zempasuchiles."
Large portraits of Swink's grandfather, "Big George," and "Tommy," her
grandmother, looked out over the ofrenda.
Von Son also pointed out unique altars, such as a group altar in which an
18-year-old sociology major, Omar Salah, placed one of his late Palestinian
grandfather's water pipes.
Salah said his grandfather used it to smoke flavored tobacco.
Another altar von Son liked, titled "Para los Ninos," was made by a group of
students for dead children. Toys, candies, bread, fruit, nuts and atole de
chocolate, a traditional Mexican chocolate drink made from corn, were offered to
the children's spirits.
Copal, a traditional incense made from the resin of pine trees, billowed from a
pipe placed above an ornate replica of the Aztec calendar.
Von Son especially liked the candle placed in the center of a cross made of
marigold petals.
"It's a fusion of the Catholic with the pagan," he said.
The altar signified Dia de los Ninos, a day reserved for dead children,
traditionally celebrated Nov. 1. Even though CSUSM held the festival on
Thursday, Dia de los Muertos is actually Nov. 2.
There was a public altar for visitors who wanted to leave mementos honoring
their own loved ones, as well as several altars to the victims of the Sept. 11
terrorist attacks.
One Sept. 11 altar featured a multimedia slide show with music on a laptop
computer. Some were images of the attacks and the rubble of the World Trade
Center; others were doctored images.
President Bush is dressed up as the flying superhero "Dubya" in one image; Osama
bin Laden cowers on the ground beneath a U.S. warplane in another.
"That's the best part," laughed Tom Watson, 27, a CSUSM business student and
active Marine Corps sergeant. He said he and three other students made the altar
because "it's something everybody can relate to. It appeals to a broader portion
of the school."
Some altars honored famous people, such as one for the late reggae musician Bob
Marley.
"He's an international symbol for freedom and individual rights," explained Beau
Faasamala, 17, an undeclared CSUSM freshman and one of four students who set up
the altar.
Another group ofrenda honored rapper Tupac Shakur and Latin pop star Selena.
"They became fads after they died, but they've been forgotten now," said Shilow
Blea, 18. "We want to honor them long afterward."
Dia de los Muertos, which has been celebrated for more than 3,000 years, dates
back to the cultures of pre-Columbian Meso-Americans. Spanish colonizers,
seeking to convert the natives, tried to scrap Dia de los Muertos by declaring
Nov. 1 All Saints' Day and Oct. 31 Allhallows' Eve, now Halloween.
"But you know us crazy pagans," said Amador jokingly. "We've kept this thing
going till today."
