Featured Exhibit

The Miccailhuitl (Day of the Dead / Día de los Muertos) season is one of the most anticipated of the entire year. And it is impossible to resist the color, the flavor, and even the smells that accompany this celebration. During Day of the Dead / Día de los Muertos, the spirits of much-loved relatives and friends are invited to return home in order to share a special feast with the living. Day of the Dead, Día de los Muertos, Día de Muertos, Fiesta de Muertos, or simply Muertos, are all correct terms. Sometimes it is called Noche de Altares. In Catholicism called Día de los Fieles Difuntos.

 

Our Mesoamerican Day of the Dead Rituals date back more than 3,000 years. Miccailhuitl is the name for our traditional ceremony honoring the passing of life from physical to essence, not the end but a new beginning.

 

 

After decades of dedicated work to promote Día de los Muertos as a festival unique to our community, expanding on our Indigenous tradition that had been melded with Catholic observances of All Saints Day and All Souls Day, it has become in many cases a hyper-commercialized enterprise. As cultural practitioners and observers of this ancient holiday we are left questioning whether the sought-after visibility has come at a price too steep.

 

Still, community groups and members are working to recenter the festival’s original intent of honoring the dead. Death was the place of silence, of regeneration; it was a natural part of life.

 

This year the Featured Exhibit will be a Community Altar curated by Makuill Ollin Ocelotl - Mitotl Calpulli (Circulo de Danza Azteca). Additional photographs and displays will be curated by the Consulado de México en San Bernardino, California (Mexican Consulate in San Bernardino). 

 

The Tlamanalli is the community altar that connects the sky, earth, and underworld. The Featured Exhibit will reconnect, practice, and share indigenous cultural identity, ancestral knowledge, and communal work.

 

LEAD Summit attendees are invited to bring items, foods, flowers for the traditional Tlamanalli Community Altar (Ofrenda prehispánica Miccailhuitl), which is non-secular and interactive; recentering the celebration's original intent of honoring the dead - moving away from the hyper-commercialized enterprise it has become in too many places.

 

 

We are doing something special: we are setting up a digital memorial screen right in the center of the altar so we can feature all of our ancestors, extended family, friends, and pets who have passed away.

 

This rotating digital display is a modern extension of our traditional ofrenda (altar). It allows us to expand our sacred space, ensuring that every ancestor, family member, friend, and beloved pet is beautifully remembered without the constraints of physical space. As the photographs cycle through, we invite you to pause, reflect, and share a story. Each image represents a life that shaped our own, a smile we miss, and a soul we welcome back to our hearts today. They are not gone as long as we remember them.

 

* Pending - QR code instructions on how to contribute your digital photographs to the rotating digital display.

 

 

 

The Association of Latino Faculty, Staff and Students (ALFSS) at California State University, San Bernardino (CSUSB) will display decorated calaveras (skulls) from their annual community art exhibition and live auction (Festival de Calaveras). A select group of the decorated calaveras will be on display for viewing and then auctioned off during part of the LEAD program proceedings. All monetary proceeds and winning bids support the ALFSS scholarship fund for CSUSB students.

 

* Pending - ALFSS participation and auction details.

 

 

Saturday, November 14th, 2026 @Fraternal Order of Eagles - 895 E. 9th St. San Bernardino.

*Starts at 5PM. Outdoors - bring your own chairs and blankets to stay warm.

The public is invited to bring items, foods, flowers, and/or photos of your passed loved ones to add to our Community Altar.

Everyone is invited and encouraged to attend, and free to the community.  This is a family- and community-centered activity, free of alcohol, drugs, and violence and working to recenter the festival’s original intent of honoring the dead.