On Saturday, the Hollywood Forever Cemetery held its 27th annual Día de los Muertos event — where tens of thousands gathered at the Los Angeles landmark for the largest celebration of the holiday anywhere outside of Mexico.
The gathering carries on a distinctly Angeleno legacy. The modern-day interpretation of the holiday was pioneered by the Eastside nonprofit Self Help Graphics & Art, which hosted its first Día de los Muertos public celebration in 1972. Since then, the holiday has become an L.A. fall staple.
While Mexico and other Latin American countries traditionally celebrate on Nov. 1 and Nov. 2, a litany of Día de los Muertos festivities fill up the Southern California calendar beginning in early October. That extended timeline abuts the tail-end of Hispanic Heritage Month, with both celebrations having deep ties to the Chicano movement of the 1960s and ‘70s, when U.S. Latinos began loudly and proudly embracing their cultural backgrounds, while fighting for social justice and equality for all.
Just as the Chicano movement welcomed new interpretations of Latinidad, the emergence of Día de los Muertos events has welcomed alternative spins on the holiday. But core to every observance is the celebration of life and the honoring of the dead.
Each year, more than 100 families camp out all day at Hollywood Forever. Potlucks, tents, folding chairs, coolers and generators fill the spaces between the graves, as people construct altars in tribute to their deceased loved ones.
Altar builders are given a theme each year to guide them in their assembly, with the 2026 iteration being “All Under One Sky.”
“Across the world, families have endured separation, communities have mourned, and many have searched for peace, comfort, and healing,” reads the event’s official website. “In times of sorrow, we are reminded that suffering knows no borders — and neither should compassion.”
South Gate resident Diana Suazo has crafted altars at Hollywood Forever for the last six years. A native of Honduras, she relocated to the L.A. area at age 14 and was quickly enamored of the Mexican culture that surrounded her — specifically, the vivacious Día de los Muertos celebrations.
Suazo said she really took to heart the event’s theme, focusing on the mention of suffering having no borders. A prominent proponent of her display was the phrase “land of immigrants” in large letters, adjacent to a collection of photos of the deceased.
“Many immigrants figured out that sometimes they don’t have a sense of belonging and in the past few years that has been highlighted even more,” Suazo said. “I became interested in carrying resistance [to that feeling] and think that Día de los Muertos is a great example of how we resist something so evident.”
Participating in this year’s event was a last-minute decision for the 36-year-old mental health worker, who said she considered not joining the festivities because of the “fear” among members of her personal support system — many of whom are immigrants.
She ultimately decided on building an altar to counteract her fear with the joy of feting life.
“Another way of resistance is celebrating those that have passed away, whether naturally, or under the threat of ICE and all the chaos caused by [the Trump] administration,” Suazo said. “I wanted to be able to say they’re not gone — they’re just now a piece of sky and we’ll always remember them and carry their legacy.”
The sound of papel picado garlands ruffling in the wind — and an elaborately swirling marigold runway — welcomed corporeal and non-corporeal visitors to Victoria Jean Cruz Jimenez’s altar.
“Papel picado is one of the big elements of the tradition that signifies a connection through air. For me, it’s like the invisible string that keeps us connected,” she said. “We are not even playing music this year because I wanted everyone to be able to hear the sounds of the wind and I feel like the ancestors are speaking to us through the wind.”
While silent, music is very much present in her altar as guitars flanked either side of the set up, highlighting her family’s artistic and musical roots.
Cruz Jimenez has celebrated Día de los Muertos at Hollywood Forever since her youth. Her enthusiasm for the Mexican tradition came from her oldest sister, who frequently dubbed it her favorite holiday. The 35-year-old tattoo artist and her family have set up an altar at the cemetery since 2015, the same year her oldest sister died.
Her sister’s presence is central to the display. Over the years, Cruz Jimenez has also had the “bittersweet” experience of adding her father and a nephew, along with several other extended family members, to the ever-growing ofrenda.
Though setting up the altar necessarily must be completed over a two-day period on cemetery grounds, Cruz Jimenez said she began thinking of the display’s layout six months in advance. It took her and her family a full month to build the structure, which included a free-standing canopy where the papel picado hung.
Engaging in this process yearly creates an environment where Cruz Jimenez feels more connected to her deceased love ones, she noted.
“The more I remember and get to talk about them, that’s when I feel them. They’re present because they’re present in my thoughts and in my heart. I feel them and this is why I love doing it,” she said. “I remember painting [for this] and feeling so connected, like remembering my dad or my sister — their laughter, the silly things my dad would tell me cuando me regañaba. It’s a very emotional thing, but it makes my heart full to do it.”
Smoke and thunderous drum beats filled the air as an Indigenous-tinged dance parade marched in front of Pomona resident Lorena Silva’s family altar.
“I see [the procession] as a blessing of our altars, of our loved ones and in some weird way, you feel your loved ones here with you,” Silva said. “It makes me really emotional seeing them here because [it reminds me] we’re OK. Grief has not gone away, but we’re looking at other ways to deal with it in a beautiful way.”
This year was the first time Lorena Silva and her sisters put together their own presentation at Hollywood Forever, after collaborating with their aunt for the previous eight years.
The sisters broke away to dedicate an altar to one of their siblings who recently died and whose death came after a deluge of personal losses.
“My sister was 31 and passed from cancer, just two years after her husband, who had mental health issues,” Silva said. “Years ago, my sister who was 17 passed away, my brother who was 11 years old passed away from cancer. Another brother passed away in his mid-30s. My sister’s son, passed away two years ago after dealing with mental health issues, at only 14 years old.”
Silva’s altar was filled with snacks honoring her loved ones: Maria cookies for her stepdad, Maruchan ramen cups, which were the go-to meal of her brother, as well as Hot Cheetos, because her sister always had a bag in her hand.
Though raised in a Mexican household, Silva didn’t celebrate Día de los Muertos until after meeting her husband, who introduced her to the specifics of the holiday.
“At that time, I was grieving my sister and my brothers,” she said. “It just helped so much in that process.”
Moving through that lingering grief as a community is one of the most powerful components of the Hollywood Forever event, Silva added.
“It’s knowing that I’m not alone in grieving my family. It’s seeing everyone else and seeing how they’re OK and knowing we’re gonna be OK,” she said. “It’s continuing to teach our kids that this is a beautiful holiday and tradition… and to show the beautiful things that our Mexican culture has. Not the bad things that people are portraying us as out there.”
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