http://historyexplorer.si.edu/rss?key=resourcesSmithsonian's History Explorer Resources Related To "Day of the Dead Festival"http://historyexplorer.si.edu/resource/?key=1044http://historyexplorer.si.edu/resource/?key=1044<p>This online exhibition provides information that will help students learn the origins of the Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead), how it was been celebrated traditionally and how it is being celebrated now. The exhibition includes links to online resources as well as printable classroom-ready resources including: a fact sheet, lesson plans for grades K-2 and 6-8, and a user's guide that includes the text of the online exhibition, more lesson ideas and instructions for making decorations for the celebration. Also included is an online interactive in which students can decorate their own virtual altar.</p>Thu, 19 Jul 2012 14:05:00 GMThttp://historyexplorer.si.edu/resource/?key=1080http://historyexplorer.si.edu/resource/?key=1080<p>Though anchored in local Roman Catholic traditions, many of the religious beliefs and symbols of Mexican Americans have roots in indigenous notions about the soul and our universe. Between October 31st and November 2nd, D&iacute;a de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, is celebrated with family, decorating home altars and visiting the graves of loved ones. A holiday with much regional and individual variation, it is traditionally an occasion to commemorate parents and grandparents with altars of marigolds, candles, alcohol, skeleton-shaped sweets, and other foods and personal objects favored by the dearly departed. Day of the Dead celebrations were reinvented across many Mexican American communities beginning in the 1970s, as the Chicano movement promoted and readapted Mexican cultural practices. Many artists since then have seized on the visual power of the altar as a conduit for personal and public memory. In the United States, Day of the Dead altars can be found interrogating life and critiquing politics in public places. Contemporary Day of the Dead celebrations have memorialized those who have died from AIDS, gang violence, the civil wars in Central America, and crossing the border. This lithograph, titled <em>Night of the Dead</em>, was originally drawn in ink by Alan Crane in 1958. Alan Horton Crane (1901 1969) was a Brooklyn-born illustrator best known for his landscapes and genre scenes of life in Mexico and New England. This image is part of a series of prints by Alan Crane housed in the Graphic Arts Collection of the National Museum of American History.</p>Thu, 19 Jul 2012 14:25:52 GMT