Dressed in elaborate costumes, a group of people re-enact the crucifixion of Christ in Chicago.
A 9-foot-tall statue of the virgin Mary is paraded through the streets of Grand Rapids.
These images, mounted on the burgundy background in the lobby of the Main Library, are part of a photo exhibit celebrating Dia de los Muertos, the Mexican holiday honoring the dead.
The exhibit was taken by history Assistant Professor Juan Javier Pescador. Pescador also spoke about religious events for Chicanos and Latinos in the Great Lakes region, also the topic of his photographs.
Finishing his speech, Pescador requested that everyone present “set aside just for tonight everything you’ve read about Mexicans so you can see them not as you are, but as they are.”
Education sophomore Angel Salinas looked over the pictures before Pescador began his talk.
“I didn’t know Grand Rapids had that large of a Hispanic community,” he said. “I didn’t know there was that tight of a community.”
Salinas said he planned on attending some of the events that will be held over the weekend to commemorate the Day of the Dead, which will be sponsored by Movimiento Estudiantil Xicano de Aztlan, or MEXA, Culturas de las Razas Unidas and the Capital Area Cesar E. Chavez Commission.
At midnight on Friday students from MEXA and MSU will gather at the rock on Farm Lane to hold a ceremony honoring the dead.
At noon on Saturday, the Day of the Dead march will begin at the same location and continue throughout campus. The Lansing march will begin at the corner of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Kalamazoo Street. Both marches will end underneath the bridge on Kalamazoo Street.
The marches are being held to petition for a street in Lansing to be named after Cesar Chavez. Petitions will be passed out during the march.
A fund-raiser dance will be held from 8 p.m. to 1 a.m. on Saturday at McKinley Hall, 914 McKinley St. in Lansing. The cost is $10 per person or $15 per couple and proceeds go to the Todos Organizados para Cuidar Estudiantes, or TOCE, scholarship, which benefits Chicano and Latino students.
