How Día de los Muertos flourished in the U.S.
Día de los Muertos is a Mexican holiday that more and more Americans observe. How did it become big here? Spoiler: The answer isn't "Coco."
Headlines From The Times · Alexis Meza de los Santos, Lauren Raab, Melissa Kaplan, Denise Guerra, Gustavo Arellano, Mario Diaz, Shannon Lin, Alan Zarembo, Ashlea Brown, Daniel Hernandez, Shani Hilton, Mike Heflin
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Show Notes
For decades, late October meant one holiday in American popular culture: Halloween. But over the past couple of decades, more and more people are also marking another fall festival: Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead.
Today, we get into how this Mexican holiday took hold in the United States: its history, its customs, how it’s different here from the way it’s observed in Mexico. We talk to L.A. Times culture reporter Daniel Hernandez, who has written extensively about the subject. And we talk to Alexis Meza de los Santos, a mexicana who grew up in Kentucky and has seen Día de los Muertos spread across the South.
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