Dia de los Muertos procession

Although the traditions of visiting gravesites and building ofrendas by Mexican American families continued in less urbanized areas of the Southwest, it was not until 1972 that public festive celebrations of Días de los Muertos appeared in Chicano communities of Los Angeles and San Francisco, with Sacramento and San Diego soon following. During the height of the Chicano movement for civil rights, Chicana/o artists at Self Help Graphics in East Los Angeles and their peers at Galería de la Raza in the Mission District of San Francisco learned from their Mexican counterparts and one another and recreated the tradition.

For them, the Day of the Dead was not only a way to honor the dead and reconnect with ancestors, but it was also a way of establishing identity, a vehicle for protest, and a way to publicly mourn and process the harsh experience of loss during the Vietnam War. Community-based workshops creating art for the celebration became a way to resist the oppressions through community togetherness.