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Día de los Muertos: A Chicano Arts Legacy explores how Chicano artists introduced Día de los Muertos imagery and community fiestas to the United States as part of the broader Mexican-American Civil Rights Movement. It showcases the dynamic relationship between the evolution of Chicano Art and the increasing popularity of Día de los Muertos in the US. This illustrated book features iconic Chicano prints, paintings, and archival photographs from the 1970s to now. It’s published by Bilingual Press, one of the country’s oldest and most well-respected Latino publishers.

HOW DÍA DE LOS MUERTOS BECAME MEXICAN:
A CULTURAL HISTORY OF DAY OF THE DEAD

This book examines the way Día de los Muertos was promoted by artists, intellectuals, and government officials in the early 20th century as part of Mexico’s nation-building efforts. I take a deeply interdisciplinary approach by surveying magazines, tourist literature, art exhibitions, government documents, anthropological studies, educational curriculum, and cinema, in order to offer a critical explanation for how and why the holiday became associated with Mexican cultural identity during the era known as the Mexican Renaissance. I also explain how the skull and skeleton imagery of Mexican engraver José Guadalupe Posada became both the official iconography of Día de los Muertos and the unofficial national totem of Mexico.