The Learning Commons and Student Commons were decked out with crafts and decorations for Dia de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, on Nov. 1, with the official holiday taking place on Nov. 2. The displayed decorations date back to the Aztecs, according to Spanish teacher Otto Lopez.
One specific craft set up for the holiday is the ofrenda, or altar for the dead. For this activity, students and faculty can write the name or a memory they have of a loved one and add it to the altar.
“We celebrate Dia de los Muertos in my family,” Lopez said. “We call it Dia de los Santos because my family is Guatemalan, but it’s very similar. We honor the dead, and we decorate the tombs, and we go to the cemetery. Here at school, we bring a little bit of that with our Spanish 2 project, and students honor somebody in their family.”
This helps the campus community feel as if they have honored those who are important to them, so that students feel comfortable spending time in the learning commons and that a community is established there, according to Kern. The Commons are the only indoor gathering space in the school that is open throughout the entire school day, which allows students to grow accustomed to the environment of the learning commons.
“It’s important because it’s a way to commemorate the people that have passed, and all the things they’ve done,” AP Spanish student and sophomore Paulina Ruiz said. “It just helps us remember our ancestors.”
For Spanish Two students, one major project that takes place for the Dia De Los Muertos holiday is for students to create posters and shoeboxes to commemorate an important person who has passed. Students get to choose to revolve their project around a former loved one or a deceased celebrity and projects are used to decorate the learning commons.
November is also National Native American Heritage Month, so the Learning Commons will be incorporating new crafts and displaying novels based off of the holiday. In the coming months, the library will have new decorations. Outside of Portola High, the Great Park also displayed an ofrenda on Nov. 2, allowing all members of the Irvine community to remember their loved ones.
