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Latinx Heritage Month: Campus Community Ofrenda

UNC Asheville Community Celebrates and Honors Departed Loved Ones in Day of the Dead Ofrenda

By UNC Asheville

October 27^th, 2023

UNC Asheville student Cynthia Martinez first heard about Day of the Dead (Día De Los Muertos) when she started attending school, and Kimberly Nava Eggett, director of the Center for Diversity Education, started celebrating it when her grandmother passed. Both wanted to learn more as they grew older.

“I wanted to have a space, and it almost felt like a way for us to kind of process our own grief and honor our roots in Mexico that felt so distant and far away,” said Nava Eggett.

Martinez is a first-generation student with dreams of becoming a screenwriter and is vice president of Hermanos Orgullosos en las Américas (HOLA) at UNC Asheville. This October, she collaborated with Nava Eggett, the 2002 founder of HOLA, to bring a community ofrenda, or altar, to Ramsey Library for Latinx Heritage Month

Diana Aguilar Robles (President of HOLA), M.J. Gamelin, and Dr. Nava Eggett at the opening ofrenda event. Photo from M.J. Gamelin

“It’s important to have Latinx month because I feel like I’m being acknowledged. I get to tell the story of my parents crossing over, growing up and losing my Spanish then gaining my Spanish again and not knowing much about my culture,” said Martinez.

Latinx Heritage Month was celebrated from September 15 through October 15, and the community ofrenda was launched on October 2 in Ramsey Library with snacks and marigold flower (cempasúchil) making. It will stay up through November 1 (All Saints Day, or Day of the Children) and November 2 (All Souls Day, or Day of the Dead).

Community Collaboration

Martinez and Nava Eggett did not build this community space alone. This ofrenda represents a campus wide partnership between HOLA, the Center for Diversity Education, Office of Multicultural Affairs and Ramsey Library.

“The collaboration is important. Our strategic plan bakes diversity and inclusion into the entirety of the university framework,” said Carlton Smith, director of Multicultural Affairs. “So it is a shared responsibility for everyone to actually do this work.”

As students and faculty enter Ramsey Library, it is hard to miss the table of glowing marigold flowers. Nava Eggett ensured the ofrenda would be central so that anyone could participate—whether through taking a curious glance, learning from the infographics, following instructions to construct a marigold flower, or putting up a picture of a departed loved one.

“This is an important part of some students' culture, and these students were not only excited to see it on campus but also to see such a wide variety of people who were not part of that culture that wanted to learn about it,” said M.J. Gamelin, assistant director of Multicultural Affairs.

Diana Aguilar Robles and Reid Chapman constructing the marigold flowers. Photo from Dr. Nava Eggett

As the Ramsey Library table fills with honored loved ones, Nava Eggett has noticed it becoming an engaging and educational space for students who identify as Latinx.

“I’m thinking of putting up a picture of one of my friends who passed back in 2018,” Martinez said. “It brings her back to life, and I am remembering her, the life that she had, and the good moments. She’s not gone because she’s still here with me. When I put her on that ofrenda, almost like in Coco, she gets to come back, and she knows that she is remembered.”

For Nava Eggett, transitioning into having her first ofrenda was learning that pictures should only be of the person that’s passed, without anyone else in the picture.

“All I knew was Day of the Dead and Cinco de Mayo until I did research and learned how much we’ve accomplished in the U.S.,” said Martinez.

Continuing the Teamwork

For students unsure where to start, the Ramsey Library has gathered a Latinx Heritage Month guide filled to the brim with films, music, books, history, National Parks celebrations, a Smithsonian exhibit and more.

For faculty and area K-12 educators, Nava Eggett has created a Latinx Heritage Month guide for educators.

Martinez doesn’t want the month to be seen as a “checkmark or check box.” Through her work with HOLA, she wants to carry events like the ofrenda into more ways to “uplift marginalized communities” yearound.

“HOLA is a safe space. Anyone is allowed to come, you don’t have to be Hispanic,” said Martinez. “We encourage anyone out of the Hispanic community to come and know more about us, know why the way we grew up was a little different and why learning Spanish is important.”

In HOLA, Martinez now learns about her culture and shares knowledge with a similarly passionate community of others, and campus organizations want to continue this work.

“The biggest thing is that this work is teamwork. It’s good to see us all coming together when we want to do something that we know is going to make an impact. And I'm looking forward to more opportunities to do that sort of work,” said Smith.

The work continues! More events hosted by the Center for Diversity Education and Office of Multicultural Affairs can be found here.

Footnotes

by Addison Wright ‘23

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FootNotes

by Addison Wright ‘23

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