Texas Southmost College Embraces Día de los Muertos with Marigolds, Calavera Faces, and an Enchanting Celebration

Guests adorned with marigold flowers and faces painted in the iconic Calavera motif gathered to celebrate Día de los Muertos on the evening of November 2, 2023, at Texas Southmost College.  

The celebration began with a festive parade as gatherers congregated between North and South Hall. Carrying lit candles and various offerings honoring friends and relatives who have passed on, gatherers made their way down the campus paseo to the TSC Oliveira Student Services Center parking lot to celebrate Dia de Los Muertos. 

The departed souls for whom the event commemorated heard the folkloric sounds echoing out into the cool evening air as the Texas Southmost College’s newly created Mariachi Escorpion and Los Fresnos High School Conjunto Halcon performed their musical pieces to the audience.  

A holiday of great significance in Mexican heritage, Día de los Muertos is less about the morbid nature of death and much more about an appreciation of life, as well as a display of reverence for friends and loved ones who are no longer with us. In many ways, the holiday encapsulates the Latin phrase memento mori, or “remember that you have to die,” invoking a sense of making the most of our time and enjoying life at every possible opportunity.  

Appropriately enough, the event occurred in the heart of the historic TSC campus, which has a reputation for supernatural occurrences. The campus, previously the Fort Brown military post back in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, was no stranger to skirmishes and bloodshed. For decades, stories of ghostly hauntings have become commonplace, with anecdotes ranging from sightings of apparitions on campus to encounters with disruptive poltergeists in offices that occupy the fort’s older buildings.  

However, one could argue that being proximate to the supernatural tends to instill a sense of comfort with it, as evidenced by the enthusiasm shown by those who hold Día de los Muertos and all that it represents close to their hearts.