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Calavera Puppet Display at Green Lawn, 10/21/17

“The Mexican … is familiar with death, jokes about it, caresses it, sleeps with it, and celebrates it. True, there is as much fear in his attitude as in that of others, but at least death is not hidden away: he looks at it face to face, with impatience, disdain or irony.”

Octavio Paz, Labyrinth of Solitude (1950)

As we celebrate Día de los Muertos from this side of the Mexico-United States border (and from this side of the grave), I am always humbled and inspired by how the ancient Mesoamerican practices continue to beat in the heart of Día de los Muertos observances that we practice today. El Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, is celebrated in Latin American countries and parts of the United States.  Combining indigenous traditions with Catholicism, it is believed that the spirit of the deceased children visit their families on November 1, and adults arrive on November 2. In Mexico, the streets near the cemeteries are filled with decorations of cut paper, flowers, candy calaveras (skulls), and parades.

In terms of the beliefs distinguishing Spanish and indigenous practices, the Catholic system holds that the dead undergo purification (purgatory) before they can reach heaven, and their surviving loved ones must pray for their souls that are in need of mercy.  In contrast, the natives saw death as a continuation of their relationship to the deceased that was strongest during these days in which their loved ones returned.  The Mexican Día de los Muertos is a joyous and sacred time, a time to welcome the souls of the dead back to this world and celebrate life.

The first time I set up a home altar was in 2003, the year that my father died of lung cancer. I was living in Mexico City at the time, a student in my junior year on a study abroad program, and I needed to have a form, something tactile, a way to acknowledge the complexity of the continuity of death and life, and a way to show my gratitude not only for what my father had given me, but also for what death was teaching me.

Many years later, I began to create altars with my students and members of my university community in the wake of September 11, 2001 in New York City. It was cathartic to come together and express not only our profound distress, mourning, and fear, but also the determination to cope, and find strength in each other as we prepared collective altars and took refuge in ritual.

Over the years, I came into contact with one of the most important Midwest celebrations of Día de los Muertos when I lived in Chicago’s predominantly Mexican neighborhood of Pilsen. It was there that I began to conduct calavera poetry workshops, a tradition that eventually traveled with me to Columbus in 2013.

            Danza Azteca at Green Lawn

Here in Columbus, I’ve had the privilege and pleasure of collaborating with Leticia Vazquez-Smith of Latino Arts for Humanity at the Muertos celebrations she coordinated at Frida Katrina Mexica Folk Art (2014), and this year at the Green Lawn Cemetery (sponsored with Columbus International Program). Here I’ve posted some photos of this event, which included a procession led by Columbus’ one and only Danza Azteca ensemble, a Catrina costume contest, original artwork, conceptual live art by Aleha Solano, and arts activities for participants of all ages.

Leticia Vazquez-Smith, Paloma Martinez-Cruz, and Fernando Lima e Morato

Ph.D. candidate Fernando Lima e Morato, Leticia Vazquez-Smith, and I shared a combination of original and published calavera poetry. Since the 19^th century, calavera poems have been a way that Mexican culture satirizes the prominent public figures of the time, giving a voice to the people who use this poetic form to remind powerful elites that, in spite of their displays of privilege, are all going to end up in the same place as everybody else in the end.

Here are two of my calavera poems that I shared at Green Lawn Cemetery this year. I hope you can join us in celebrating Día de los Muertos this year on November 2 at the Thompson Memorial Library (2-3:30) for a talk by Dr. Ignacio Corona and a calavera poetry workshop led by yours truly, and on Saturday, November 4, for the all-day family festival starting at 11:00 AM at the Gateway Library, and ending at the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum on the OSU Columbus campus. Here come the dead!

CALAVERA TWEET #45

Here lies a great president

Who died of grief

From having hands that were too small

Now he’s there in the tomb

Nothing left to exhume

Tossing paper towels

To the dead

COLUMBUS LOVE IN THE BONES

Columbus love in the bones

Two rivers, zero U-turns

From game day traffic, no escape:

La calaca wears a Brutus cap

A striking tableau vivant: Felix Hernandez (Danza Azteca) and Aleha Solano (performance artist)

On December 2, we had our year-end Onda Latina open mic event at Wild Goose Creative that featured graduate student performances from the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at OSU.  Andy Downing published an article in Columbus Alive about minority perspectives and responses to the election featuring Onda Latina’s event.  Check it out here!

http://www.columbusalive.com/content/stories/2016/12/15/artists-musicians-and-poets-of-color-brace-for-the-incoming-trump-administration.html

We’re grateful for all of the energetic and heartening performances, including the CHUSMA BOX (“Rabble Box”) that was filled with anonymous comments from participants struggling to come to terms with the top-down climate of hostility after the election.  In keeping with the tradition of audience members randomly selecting Chusma papers from the box and reading them aloud, we selected a few random papelitos from the box to share with you here, followed by a few images from the featured performances:

“The only wall that I like: Pink Floyd’s one”

“I’m tired of the myths we tell ourselves.  Some people are not just blessed, it’s called privilege.  Let’s call it what it is.”

“I carry my woman card.  I carry my Latina card.  I carry my friendship card.  I will fight with love.”

“TAKE A SPANISH SELFIE”

At the “Take a Spanish Selfie” performance intervention, audience members posed with performers Celia Martinez Saez and Eric Garn.

“THE TRUMPOCALYPSE TEXT”

An audience/participant embraces Ryder Cunningham, who performed with Estelí Puente Beccar and Mariona Surribas Balduque in “The Trumpocalypse Text.”

Onda Latina Ohio is grateful for your participation and solidarity in 2016!

Onda Latina Ohio open mic partners with OSU Spanish and Portuguese graduate students to create an evening of performance art and spoken word with a focus on gender, power, sexuality, and the Trumpocalypse. Open mic available to ALL, en el idioma que prefieran, regardless of identity markers, with consideration to the creation of a safer space for Latinx and allies.

When? Friday, December 2, 2016, 8-10 PM

Where? Columbus Wild Goose Creative, 2491 Summit St, Columbus, OH 43202

All ages welcome, but parental discretion is advised

Where can I get free pizza for bringing visibility to Latin American women around the world? Read more…

Where: 160 Hagerty Hall

When: November 2, 5-8

Help us give visibility to Latin American women on the web by translating Wikipedia articles (from Spanish and Portuguese) into English!

We have a list of 70+ important women in Latin America who have very poor (or non-existent) Wikipedia pages in English and we hope to give them more visibility on the web and, consequently, make them more well-known in the US context.
Plus, it’s a great opportunity to practice your language skills!

How it will work:
1. When you arrive, give us your lastname.# or other email account;
2. We will email you a Google Spreadsheet with the following information: Name of woman, Country, Field of work, Link with source article, Approximate number of words in source article, Link with target article for you to edit (or, if it’s N/A, you will create a brand new page for her!).
3. Once you choose which article you want to translate (based on your favorite Latin American country, area of interest, or–let’s be honest–number of words), add your name and lastname.# to that article and highlight it in yellow. If an article in the Google doc is highlighted in yellow it’s because it is in progress of being translated.
4. Log in to your Wikipedia account. (We will teach you how to do it, it’s very easy.)
5. Translate away! Don’t be too shy to ask for help or ask any questions; we want this to be a very collaborative event.
6. Once you’re done, highlight in green the article in the Google doc. If an article is highlighted in green it means that it’s all done!

***BRING YOUR OWN LAPTOP***
There will be some laptops available for students who don’t have theirs, but not many.

Alice Bag is a singer/songwriter, musician, author, artist, educator and feminist. Alice was the lead singer and co-founder of the Bags, one of the first punk bands to form during the first wave of punk rock in Los Angeles. The Bags are considered one of the key bands of the early Hollywood punk scene that centered around the Masque in 1977-78. In 1981, members of the Bags appeared as the Alice Bag Band in the seminal documentary on punk rock, The Decline of Western Civilization. 

Alice went on to perform in other groundbreaking bands, including Castration Squad, Cholita, and Las Tres. She has published two books, including the critically acclaimed memoir Violence Girl in 2011 and the 2015 self-published Pipe Bomb For the Soul, based on her teaching experiences in post-revolutionary 1980’s Nicaragua.

Alice’s influence on popular music is highlighted in the Smithsonian exhibit, American Sabor. Alice’s self-titled debut solo album will be released on June 24th, 2016 on Don Giovanni Records. Alice Bag features all original material written by Bag and includes performances by some of her favorite LA-based musicians.

http://rocknwomen.avidnoise.com/2016/06/17/a-big-announcement-issue-1/

In April, Onda Latina Ohio welcomed our featured presenter Brenda Hernandez, Chicago Latin music collector and cultural arts educator.  Programs Coordinator for Yollocalli Arts Reach, a youth initiative of the National Museum of Mexican Art in Chicago, she spoke with us about the transformative sounds of disco and the disco-very of sexuality.  How do we encourage safety among women and girls at the same time that we overcome repression and celebrate pleasure?

To kick off Women’s History Month, Onda Latina Ohio welcomed our featured artist Isis Costa McElroy who performed a spoken-word piece titled “Reflections of Silêncio.” Incorporating Afro-Brazilian languages and spirit, Isis led us on an elegant spoken word journey through the dimensions of myth and place making.