Around 20 McCallum students, accompanied by Spanish teacher Juana Gun, joined a Dia de los Muertos parade in downtown Austin on Oct. 29. The parade was part of the 33rd annual Viva La Vida Festival and proceeded from East Austin to downtown along Sixth Street, ending at Congress Avenue; it included floats, low riders, art displays and performances from local musicians and dancers.
The students met at McCallum at 8 a.m. where they enjoyed breakfast tacos and had their faces painted by the art students of Mr. Seckar-Martinez and Mrs. Ghazi.
“[We were] trying to get the effect of candy skulls: half face representing life and death, which is inevitable for everybody, not to be grim but to celebrate people’s lives,” Gun said. “It’s a holiday where you celebrate those who have passed on.”
The parade itself is organized by costume, including groupings of people dressed to commemorate different subjects from the Mexican Revolution and the Aztec Indians to the Keep Austin Weird movement. This year’s parade was dedicated to Juan Gabriel, the Latin music icon who died on Aug. 28 just hours before he was to perform a concert in El Paso. He was honored with his own themed section in the parade.
McCallum students, after dressing up and getting their faces painted, marched for around two miles with decorative skulls on tall wooden poles, provided by the Mexic-Arte Museum. The next day, a picture of the McCallum students was featured in the Austin American-Statesman.
“It’s my pride and joy whenever McCallum Knights are caught doing the wonderful things they do,” Gun said. “I love this campus because the kids are so fun. So they came because I asked them: they wanted extra credit, they wanted to have a good time, [or] they wanted to experience something different; I just hope that they come with me again or that later in life they take their families to see the parade.”
