Day of the Dead in the USA, Second Edition: The Migration and Transformation of a Cultural Phenomenon
Regina M. Marchi
Day of the Dead in the USA, Second Edition: The Migration and Transformation of a Cultural Phenomenon explores how honoring relatives by tending graves, building altars, and cooking festive meals — a tradition among Latin Americans for centuries — has been transformed into a major cultural phenomenon across the United States. Focusing on the power of public ritual as a communication medium, this revised and updated edition combines 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. Today Chicano-style Day of the Dead events take place in all fifty states. A testament to the complex role of media and commercial forces in constructions of ethnic identity, this book provides insight into the power of art and ritual to create community, transmit oppositional messages, and advance educational, political, and economic goals.
The Author
Regina M. Marchi is a professor in the Department of Journalism and Media Studies at Rutgers University–New Brunswick. 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.
The Introduction
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.
This second edition provides new information about the increase in Day of the Dead events across the US, recent political movements expressed in contemporary celebrations including #BlackLivesMatter and #MeToo, greater media coverage and online presence, Día de los Muertos themes in video games and films, and the proliferation of commercialized merchandise at mainstream retailers.
The Chapters
Preface
Acknowledgments
Note on the Text
Glossary
Introduction
1. An Ancient and Modern Festival
2. Mexico’s Special Relationship with Day of the Dead
3. Day of the Dead in the United States
4. Ritual Communication and Community Building
5. US Day of the Dead as Political Communication: A Moral Economy
6. Day of the Dead in the US Media: The Celebration Goes Mainstream
7. Appeal, Influence and Ownership
8. The Commodification of Day of the Dead
Conclusion: What We Can Learn from US Day of the Dead Celebrations
Methodological Appendix
Notes
Bibliography
Index
The Reviews
“Marchi provides a unique and valuable account of the rise of Day of the Dead celebrations in the U.S., demonstrating the complex dynamics of ethnic and cultural identity in the contemporary cultural economy, urban community, and media environment.”
— Eric W. Rothenbuhler, author of Ritual Communication
“What a difference a day (the Day of the Dead) makes! In the U.S. in the past generation, a Latin American family/religious ritual has been reinvented as a holiday of ethnic pride that builds bridges between new and settled immigrants, between Latinos and Anglos, and across cultural identity, consumerism, and political protest. Regina Marchi reveals all this in a marvelous work, a rare blend of charm, grace, attentive field work, and theoretical savvy.”
— Michael Schudson, author of The Good Citizen: A History of American Public Life
“Regina Marchi speaks directly to all of those wondering how Mexico’s tradition of re-membering the dead within living communities became US America’s newest holiday. The book thoughtfully records the voices of significant Chicanas/os whose traditional and non-traditional approaches initiated this transformation.”
— David Avalos, Visual and Performing Arts Department, California State University San Marcos
“Regina Marchi has written the most historically and geographically comprehensive documentation of Día de los muertos. The second edition centers the voices of the Chicana/o/x artists and advocates who made this celebration into an international phenomenon and subsequently gained the attention of markets, museums, and the media.”
— Karen Mary Davalos, author of Chicana/o Remix: Art and Errata Since the Sixties
“Fifty years after the first Day of the Dead celebration was hosted in the United States, Marchi invites readers into a thriving world of the Día de los Muertos consumer culture. The book expands upon Marchi’s original historical and ethnographic research to foreground the role of consumer culture in the expression of ethno-racial identities within traditional practices of commemoration.”
— Rachel V. González-Martin, author of Quinceañera Style: Social Belonging and Latinx Consumer Identities