[[link removed]]

MEXICAN AMERICAN ARTISTS CELEBRATE DAY OF THE DEAD AMID ICE ATTACKS
 
[[link removed]]


 

Jennifer Suan
October 31, 2025
The Progressive
[[link removed]]


*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

_ Artists in New York City are using their art to strengthen the
Mexican community in the face of federal immigration raids. _

Handmade Día de Muertos sculptures at Mano a Mano: Mexican Culture
Without Borders' office on September 2025., (Jennifer Suan)

 

hough she was raised in Mexico, experimental folk musician Marilyn
Castillo [[link removed]]
rarely celebrated the Day of the Dead growing up. Day of the Dead, or
_Día de Muertos _is a Mexican holiday during which families honor the
lives of their deceased loved ones through elaborate, colorful altars,
or _ofrendas_, which spiritually welcome the departed. For Castillo,
who now lives in New York City, Day of the Dead was a mere “a civic
activity” growing up, showcased in churches and town halls in her
childhood town Ciudad Juárez, a Mexican border city on the Rio
Grande. 

After moving to New York in 2014 to pursue musical studies, Castillo
developed a newfound cultural connection through performing in Day of
the Dead events at bars and local live music venues. In 2018, Castillo
became the female lead singer for the Calpulli Mexican Dance Company
[[link removed]]; now, she performs music
with the company every year on Day of the Dead in theaters across the
tristate area. “I like that people from other cultures here find it
consoling as well,” Castillo tells _The Progressive_. “Even though
they were not born with this tradition, as I was not, it is something
that you can adopt because it’s so beautiful.” 

 
[DiadeMuertos2.png]

Jonathan Morelos

Musician Marilyn Castillo at a Harlem Día de Muertos celebration and
performance, November 2024.

Each year, Mexican American artists like Castillo in New York
City—and across the United States—celebrate Day of the Dead with
musical performances, dance numbers, art installations, and other
activities. This year, however, their work offers the New York Mexican
community an urgent sense of solidarity, hope, and resistance amid
federal immigration raids
[[link removed]]. In
celebrating this centuries-old holiday, Mexican Americans are
asserting their right to exist and publicly express their cultural
heritage. 

As U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents continue to
violently detain people
[[link removed]],
attendees must take safety protocols at these festivities into serious
consideration, says Mexican American anthropologist Christina Patten.
Still, she says, there is power in continuing to celebrate a Mexican
tradition in defiance of the Trump Administration's attacks on
immigrant communities. 

“Resistance is even just the act of doing something that is
culturally Mexican and Mexican American in general,” Patten says.
Unabated Día de Muertos celebrations, she says, can be “a way for
people to connect and show community and allyship to people who are
impacted by ICE raids.” For her part, Castillo says she uses her
music to communicate “a message to the audience of fraternity,
unity, and hope.”

Día de Muertos art and political activism centered on resisting
alienation and systemic violence have long been central
[[link removed]]
to the identity of Chicanos, an identity of which formed to emphasize
Mexican culture in the face of assimilation. In the 1960s and 1970s,
Chicano art-activists transformed
[[link removed]] the
way Día de Muertos is celebrated in the United States, incorporating
[[link removed]]
cultural and artistic elements from Indigenous communities in Mexico
and using the holiday to uplift the Chicano identity. Their use of
Día de Muertos prints with _cavalera_, or skull imagery, in
particular, laid the groundwork
[[link removed](calaveras,skulls%20and%20flowers]
for artists working at the intersection of cultural exchange and
social justice.

Chicano artists in New York City are now building on that legacy,
working to rebuild a sense of community in the wake of increasing
attacks on the Latino community
[[link removed]].
Andrea Arroyo [[link removed]], a
self-identified “artivist” who fuses folk and contemporary art,
says that while growing up in a family of non-Catholic creatives in
the predominantly Catholic Mexico City, Mexico, her family culturally
celebrated the holiday, rather than celebrating it in a traditional
religious way. Arroyo was first commissioned ten years ago to create
traditional Día de Muertos _ofrenda_ installations
[[link removed]]
for various art institutions. Traditionally, _ofrendas_ are tiered
altars showcasing photos of deceased loved ones. Adornments to the
altar typically include food, marigold flowers, and candles along with
religious symbols such as crosses.

“It became important to me to make them my own, so rather than just
having a traditional altar, I incorporated contemporary elements,”
Arroyo says. Incorporating contemporary 2D illustrations with folk
traditions like _papel picados_, floral textile motifs, and
_calaveras_, she says, brought her “closer to the artisans that make
the traditional things” while making art that is “universal” to
culturally diverse audiences. As an artist, Arroyo strives to make art
participatory and driven by social action by touching upon political
themes in her work: “I use art as a tool for change. I do believe
that art can change the world.”

 

[DiadeMuertos4.jpg]

Michael Palma

"Viva la Vida" by Andrea Arroyo at the Sugar Hill Museum, October
2025.

 

[DiadeMuertos3.jpg]

Mariana Otálora

"Life is a Dream" by Andrea Arroyo at Flatiron District, October 2024.

On October 25, Arroyo opened
[[link removed]]
her newest _ofrenda_ installation, titled “Viva La Vida,” for the
Sugar Hill Children’s Museum of Art & Storytelling in Manhattan. By
collaborating with museums across the city with installations that
celebrate her culture, she says, Mexican artists can break barriers in
art scenes where they have been historically underrepresented. “I
really want our communities to go into these places, to be part of
these places, and to understand that all of those places are all of
ours. And the opposite as well—people who come to see the
traditional museum encounter something non-traditional, contemporary,
made by a brown woman from Mexico.”

For Bronx-based contemporary and folk dancer Argelia Arreola
[[link removed]], cultural artistic
fusion—the practice of combining different cultural elements and
styles into art—is a way to meld creative expression and social
justice. Also born and raised in Mexico City, Arreola discovered a
passion for West African dance after moving to Veracruz, Mexico, for
university after taking classes taught by Estela Lucio. Her desire to
learn more about cross-cultural artistic exchange didn’t stop after
her schooling. Upon moving to New York City in 2013, Arreola
discovered a community of people who listen to _son Jarocho_, or
“Veracruz sound,” a regional music genre that blends Indigenous,
Spanish, and West African sounds. “The _son Jarocho_ helped me a lot
to find community,” Arreola says. “I really find it in the
fandangos, during the parties, playing _jarana_ [Mexican string
instrument], and singing in the celebrations like Día de Muertos.”

 
[DiadeMuertos1.jpg]

Gabriel Elizondo

"Diablos" choreographed by Argelia Arreola for Ballet Nepantla's
Mística, 2022.

Arreola is usually performing dances on tour across the United States
and Mexico during Día de Muertos, but that doesn’t stop her from
celebrating the holiday through her performances. During the rest of
the year, she choreographs dances for _Mística_, a Día de Muertos
show exploring the afterlife, put on by New York City-based dance
company Ballet Nepantla [[link removed]]. In one
piece, which Arreola describes as an homage to her parents, she
combines Mexican folk dance with Afro-influence. Following each
performance, attendees are welcome to speak with the dancers and
choreographers. “They feel identified with us,” she says.
“It’s very fulfilling.”

In February, the Bronx Council of the Arts granted Arreola funds to
create a dance production dedicated to _Las Patronas_, a group of
women from Veracruz who provide
[[link removed]]
food for migrants riding on _La Bestia_, the infamous freight train on
which many migrants ride
[[link removed]]
to reach the U.S.-Mexico border. The purpose of this dance, which
Arreola plans to perform on December 17, is to create community
“like _Las Patronas_ are doing—to help others. We are humans, we
are living in the same world, so let’s try to make community.”

In the face of danger and uncertainty, art remains especially integral
in reinforcing the Mexican American community’s endurance. Arroyo
says, “Music, dance, art in general is one of the best ways to bring
people together.”

 

_Jennifer Suan is a freelance arts and culture writer based in New
York City. She currently writes pop culture and fashion analyses on
her Substack “immaterealities.”_

 

_Since 1909, The Progressive has aimed to amplify voices of dissent
and those under-represented in the mainstream, with a goal of
championing grassroots progressive politics. Our bedrock values are
nonviolence and freedom of speech._

_Based in Madison, Wisconsin, we publish on national politics,
culture, and events including U.S. foreign policy; we also focus on
issues of particular importance to the heartland. Two flagship
projects of The Progressive include __Public School Shakedown_
[[link removed]]_, which covers
efforts to resist the privatization of public education, and __The
Progressive Media Project_ [[link removed]]_, aiming to
diversify our nation’s op-ed pages. We are a 501(c)(3) nonprofit
organization. _

* Mexican Americans
[[link removed]]
* Day of the Dead
[[link removed]]
* Art and Resistance
[[link removed]]
* New York City
[[link removed]]
* ICE
[[link removed]]

*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

 

 

 

INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT

 

 

Submit via web
[[link removed]]

Submit via email
Frequently asked questions
[[link removed]]
Manage subscription
[[link removed]]
Visit xxxxxx.org
[[link removed]]

Bluesky [[link removed]]

Facebook [[link removed]]

 




[link removed]

To unsubscribe, click the following link:
[link removed]