{"id":869763,"date":"2026-10-03T20:48:20","date_gmt":"2026-10-03T20:48:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/869763\/"},"modified":"2026-10-03T20:48:20","modified_gmt":"2026-10-03T20:48:20","slug":"a-giant-la-catrina-sculpture-sends-a-defiant-message-from-oaklands-latinx-community","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/869763\/","title":{"rendered":"A Giant La Catrina Sculpture Sends a Defiant Message From Oakland\u2019s Latinx Community"},"content":{"rendered":"

This story was reported for K Onda KQED, a monthly newsletter focused on the Bay Area\u2019s Latinx community. Click here to subscribe.<\/a><\/p>\n

In the not-too-distant past, I might have argued that we had reached peak Catrina \u2014 the skeleton image linked with D\u00eda de los Muertos<\/a> was everywhere from keychains to restaurant murals \u2014 and was becoming clich\u00e9.<\/p>\n

A giant La Catrina sculpture in Oakland has proven me wrong.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On Thursday morning, a crowd of hundreds gathered in the Fruitvale Transit Center plaza to officially welcome the towering 34-foot sculpture, with fanfare usually reserved for a foreign dignitary.<\/p>\n

\"\"The 34-foot-tall La Catrina de Oakland at Fruitvale Plaza in Oakland on Oct. 1, 2026.\u00a0(Martin do Nascimento\/KQED)<\/p>\n

\"\"Ana Maria Due\u00f1as (center) and others take photos of the La Catrina de Oakland at Fruitvale Plaza in Oakland on Oct. 1, 2026.<\/p>\n

\"\"Angelica Ramirez (center) cheers at the Welcome Ceremony for La Catrina de Oakland at Fruitvale Plaza in Oakland on Oct. 1, 2026.<\/p>\n

Elected officials, including Mayor Barbara Lee and the Consul General of Mexico, offered remarks. A ballet folkl\u00f3rico from Oakland\u2019s Fremont High School, Turf Inc. dancers and a mariachi performed. Bystanders cheered and took selfies.<\/p>\n

All the while, La Catrina, with her arms stretched out, seemed to offer everyone an unexpected warm hug. The skeletal figure dons a marigold crown and a purple dress covered in Mexican iconography and phrases, including \u201cAqu\u00ed estamos y no nos vamos,\u201d which means, \u201cWe are here and we\u2019re not leaving.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Decorations on the dress of La Catrina de Oakland include California poppies, pan dulce and the words, \u201caqu\u00ed estamos y no nos vamos,\u201d at Fruitvale Plaza in Oakland on Oct. 1, 2026.<\/p>\n

\"\"Members of the public welcome La Catrina de Oakland at Fruitvale Plaza in Oakland on Oct. 1, 2026.<\/p>\n

Last year, Chris Iglesias, CEO of Oakland nonprofit the Unity Council, saw that artists had installed massive Catrina sculptures in other cities and decided that Oakland needed one, too. The Unity Council organizes the annual D\u00eda de los Muertos festival in Fruitvale.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause of D\u00eda de los Muertos and how many people come out every year, and what happened last year with the theme, \u2018Aqu\u00ed estamos y no nos vamos,\u2019 it\u2019s like, let\u2019s just build on that,\u201d he said during the welcome ceremony.\u00a0\u201cWe want to build on it in a very big way. We didn\u2019t think he was going to be this big. She\u2019s a big lady, right? But she\u2019s a beautiful lady.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"A mariachi group performs at the Welcome Ceremony for La Catrina de Oakland at Fruitvale Plaza in Oakland on Oct. 1, 2026.<\/p>\n

\"\"Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee and Chris Iglesias, CEO of the Unity Council, dance together as members of Fremont High School\u2019s baile folkl\u00f3riko group perform at the Welcome Ceremony for La Catrina de Oakland at Fruitvale Plaza in Oakland on Oct. 1, 2026.<\/p>\n

The Unity Council connected with ArtSumex, a group of Mexican artists who specialize in larger-than-life Catrinas, to commission the piece, which was crafted in central Mexico and trucked to Oakland. Other groups, including Visit Oakland, the city of Oakland and the Latino Community Foundation, joined in to help cover the $65,000 cost.<\/p>\n

Thursday\u2019s welcome ceremony was a celebration of an amazing work of art, but also of Oakland\u2019s community and the way Mexican culture transcends borders.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe traveled over 2,000 miles from Mexico to Oakland,\u201d said Caheri Gutierrez, the Unity Council\u2019s director of fund development and communications. \u201cA journey that mirrors the journeys of generations of families who have made their way here to El Norte, carrying their culture, traditions, dreams and hopes.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd now she stands here in Fruitvale, the heart of Oakland\u2019s Latino community, as the tallest Catrina in the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n

The speakers on Thursdays talked about the importance of honoring and uplifting immigrant communities at a time when the federal government has adopted an anti-immigrant stance and launched a harsh deportation enforcement campaign.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"The crowd welcomes La Catrina de Oakland by saying \u201cBienvenida, a Oakland, la Catrina,\u201d at Fruitvale Plaza in Oakland on Oct. 1, 2026.\u00a0(Martin do Nascimento\/KQED)<\/p>\n

La Catrina, \u201creally is a symbol of the friendship, of the connection, of the enduring legacy, of the contributions that Mexicans and Mexican Americans have made,\u201d said Juli\u00e1n Castro, CEO of the Latino Community Foundation and former HUD secretary.<\/p>\n

\u201cDuring this time when the community has been targeted, when it\u2019s been scapegoated, when it has been otherized, when it is told in so many ways that it doesn\u2019t belong, instead, we find in this image \u2026 a beautiful, beautiful statement about joy and celebration.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lee talked about her childhood in El Paso, Texas, a border community where two countries converged.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee speaks at The Welcome Ceremony for La Catrina de Oakland at Fruitvale Plaza in Oakland on Oct. 1, 2026.\u00a0(Martin do Nascimento\/KQED)<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are a town that stays true to its values for speaking up for racial justice, to defending our immigrant neighbors when their rights are being threatened and to protect our immigrant neighborhoods,\u201d she said. \u201cI know that immigrants give our city of Oakland its strength, its culture and its resilience. And that\u2019s why La Catrina means so much.\u201d<\/p>\n

La Catrina refers to an image created by Mexican artist Jos\u00e9 Guadalupe Posada in 1912 as a satirical image making fun of Mexico\u2019s upper classes. Skeleton imagery, however, dates back thousands of years to the indigenous people of Mexico.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In recent decades, Posada\u2019s Catrina has become heavily associated with D\u00eda de los Muertos or Day of the Dead, a holiday in which people honor deceased loved ones and ancestors, and now represents an evolution of an ancient tradition.<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

Day of the Dead<\/a> has slowly crept into mainstream U.S. culture thanks to movies like Disney\u2019s Coco \u2014 and of course the holiday industrial complex that turns any celebration into an excuse to buy decor and merchandise.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Onlookers watch the Welcome Ceremony for La Catrina de Oakland from the BART platform at Fruitvale Station in Oakland on Oct. 1, 2026.\u00a0(Martin do Nascimento\/KQED)<\/p>\n

I have been worried for years that oversaturation of skeleton imagery meant that it and Day of the Dead were losing significance. Catrinas depict the dead as living beings, which represents the way life and death are intertwined and the way death and the deceased are ever-present in our lives.<\/p>\n

There is something arresting, evocative and impressive about Catrinas because skeletons aren\u2019t supposed to laugh or smile or exude life. It\u2019s a fascinating dichotomy, which is perhaps why La Catrina is an appropriate symbol for our current times when immigrants are under siege and yet bring so much life to our communities.<\/p>\n

I found it endearing that the speakers at the welcome ceremony talked about La Catrina as a being who had traveled to Oakland, who would serve to welcome people stepping off BART and who would serve as an ambassador of Mexican culture.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I hope you go see her for yourself. You can visit La Catrina at the Fruitvale Transit Center plaza now through Nov. 1.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This story was reported for K Onda KQED, a monthly newsletter focused on the Bay Area\u2019s Latinx community.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":869764,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[228,226,227,229,88],"class_list":["post-869763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/869763","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=869763"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/869763\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/869764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=869763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=869763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=869763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}