Self Help Graphics & Art is holding its 53rd annual Día de los Muertos celebration outside its own building on Anderson Street near 1300 E. 1st St. in Boyle Heights on November 7, from 3 p.m. to 10 p.m. — a homecoming of sorts, since the celebration has often been held at the East LA Civic Center while the organization's 12,000-square-foot headquarters has been under renovation.
As reported by LAist, the building is being transformed into a cultural center meeting museum standards, with seismic retrofitting, an expanded printmaking studio, upgraded gallery lighting and a larger multipurpose room for community gatherings. The building is expected to reopen in 2027, but the Día de los Muertos festivities are coming back to the site this year regardless. Executive Director Paulina Flores told the outlet that Día de los Muertos at Self Help Graphics has always been a homecoming for the community.
A Festival Built Around Live Music and Ritual
This year's lineup includes live performances by Los Lobos and La Santa Cecilia, according to the same LAist report. Aztec dancers will guide a ceremonial procession from Mariachi Plaza to Self Help Graphics & Art, echoing the organization's long tradition of public street ritual tied to the holiday.
The celebration will also include community altars, a Muertos Market featuring local artists and artisans, face painting, and local food vendors. Self Help Graphics & Art will sell prints at the celebration. Its preparatory community workshop series in October will include miniature-altars activities. The National Museum of the American Latino will lead craft workshops, and the event will offer oral history interviews with community members, drawing on a model the Smithsonian Folklife Festival also uses with its own oral history station, per the same account.
Roots Tracing Back to a 1970 East LA Garage
Self Help Graphics & Art was founded in an East L.A. garage by Sister Karen Boccalero, a Franciscan nun and printmaker, alongside a small group of young Latino artists who used art to spread social justice messages. The organization held its first Día de los Muertos event in 1972, which the LAist report notes is considered the first public U.S. commemoration of a tradition rooted in Mexico's indigenous origins.
That first procession, organized in 1973, began at Evergreen Cemetery and continued down Cesar Chavez Avenue, according to the Los Angeles Times. The newspaper also reports that Boccalero and local Chicano artists conceived the early commemorations partly as a public healing ritual meant to bolster neighborhood morale after East Los Angeles families suffered heavy casualties in the Vietnam War. Before Self Help Graphics established those public processions and gallery altars, Día de los Muertos in Southern California had been observed almost exclusively as a private, home- and cemetery-based family tradition, per the Latinos in America newsletter.
Building Ownership Decades in the Making
The Anderson Street facility itself has a long history. It is a 112-year-old former seafood packing plant that Self Help Graphics began renting in 2011, purchased for $3.625 million in 2018 with financing, and paid off the mortgage on in spring 2022, announcing the payoff in June 2022, according to The Art Newspaper. The outlet reported that the current renovation is part of a broader $14.9 million capital campaign, with $10.1 million earmarked for construction and $4.8 million for property acquisition and operational reserves — backed by $4 million in California state funding and $1 million from philanthropist MacKenzie Scott.
Paulina Flores is the organization's executive director, and Self Help Graphics plans to return to Boyle Heights in 2026.
Free Workshops Lead Up to the Block Party
In the weeks before the block party, Self Help Graphics & Art is running a Día de los Muertos community art workshop series from 12 p.m. to 3 p.m. at the East Los Angeles County Library Community Room, 4837 E. 3rd St. The workshops are free for all ages and include materials, with registration available at selfhelpgraphics.com/diadelosmuertos, per LAist.
The series kicks off Saturday with stamp collages led by Dewey Tafoya, followed by calavera masks featuring a design by Leo Limon on October 10, recuerdo posters with Victoria Delgadillo on October 17, “living candle” mini paintings with Ivan Zuno on October 24, and candle decorating with Nupur Behera on October 31, rounding out the series just before the main celebration.
Sustaining the Tradition During Construction
While its headquarters has been under renovation, Self Help Graphics has kept its public Día de los Muertos traditions alive through other venues. The organization partnered with Downtown Los Angeles's Gloria Molina Grand Park for its 2021 Día de los Muertos event, which included Noche de Ofrenda, an annual civic opening ceremony, and a separate exhibition featuring 20 artist-built altars, as Hoodline previously reported.
The organization's commitment to reaching communities beyond its own walls dates back decades. A converted old truck served as a mobile art studio for teaching.
Eastside altarista Ofelia Esparza, a sixth-generation altar maker named a National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellow in 2018, has created altars and other projects with Self Help Graphics, according to the Alliance for California Traditional Arts. The November 7 celebration continues that lineage of altar-building and public ritual that has defined the organization since its founding, now returning to the building Self Help Graphics owns.
