The Brief

Growing up in a multicultural household, my brother and I attended a Spanish Saturday school known as Escuelita. It was there that I first celebrated Dia De Los Muertos. I remember learning about the holiday and building my first altar, made from cardboard. We filled it with pan dulce, different types of fruits, and Mexican chocolate, the potent scent still remaining part of my core memory.

We made sugar skulls, too, and licked the frosting from our fingertips during the decorating process and debated whether you could eat them. (You can but I wouldn’t advise it. Too hard, plus many skulls are reused since the sugar doesn’t go bad.)

Back then, it was all about the sweets. But as I’ve grown older and gained more perspective, as with most things, the celebration has taken on a great significance.

In our fast-paced world, celebrating Dia De Los Muertos gives us the time and space to reflect and collectively mourn those who have passed. It teaches us not to fear death and dying but to embrace it as part of life.

And in a post-pandemic world with a never-ending news cycle of suffering, remembering the dead has never felt more vital.

When I talked to Laura Martinez, the owner of East Los Sweets, who started her sugar skull-making business tucked away in the corner of her family’s bakery, La Central Bakery in East L.A., she said something that resonated with me.

"I didn't grow up making altars," she said. Her interest was piqued when she attended a Day of the Dead celebration in Los Angeles years ago and became fascinated with the skulls that are perhaps one of the most immediately recognizable emblems of the holiday.

Laura Martinez, of East Los Sweets, decorates sugar skulls in preparation for Dia de Muertos.

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Samanta Helou Hernandez

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Sugar skulls created by Laura Martinez of East Los Sweets.

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Samanta Helou Hernandez

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The following year, she began making her own skulls, putting her own artistic spin on them. She quickly realized how her work became a person's story: Customers who purchased them were so grateful, pouring out memories of their loved ones, she said.

Don't call it 'Mexican Halloween'

When we lose our loved ones, we often look for ways to connect with them, and Martinez's work serves as a connective link in the chain of life.

Day of the Dead or Dia De Los Muertos, the Mexican celebration that dates back thousands of years, combines indigenous celebrations and Roman Catholic traditions connected to All Saints Day and All Souls’ Day.

One thing it is not is Mexican Halloween.

The celebration occurs between Nov. 1 and 2, where legend tells us that the spirit world and the living are connected. Believers call on their loved ones who have passed to return from the land of the dead and visit, even for a moment, easing their grief and encouraging healing with happy memories.

Finding a way back home

Favorite food and drink is left out to lure and offer guidance to our loved ones so they find their way back to the homes of their living relatives.

A national holiday in Mexico, the Day of the Dead’s reach is now global. And of course there’s the 2017 release of the Oscar-winning Disney film Coco, which brought the festival and the traditions to a wider audience. Today, you can buy Day of the Dead decorations at Target, and Mexican skeleton iconography is found on everything from beer cans to children’s T-shirts.

Why it's different in L.A.

While cities across the U.S. celebrate the Day of the Dead, I’d argue that no one has embraced it quite like Los Angeles, which is the perfect setting for celebrating a holiday of mixed cultural practices.

After all, we are a city of diverse traditions that co-exist next to each other, an area familiar with paying homage to the past while embracing the future.

Day of the Dead is a product of colonization, a mash-up of European and Indigenous traditions. Los Angeles, in its current day, is representative of the struggles associated with it.

I wanted to use this opportunity to learn more about the traditions surrounding the celebration, breaking down some of the key elements. As Dia De Los Muertos drew nearer this year, I reached out to a sugar skull maker and a master altar maker. These two different artists ’ involvement in the holiday ranges from casual to fiercely devoted, which I felt was an accurate representation of how many in Los Angeles celebrate the holiday and was something I could also relate to. While I grew up learning about Dia De Los Muertos, I'm always looking to learn more — and share what I learn.

The art of sugar skulls

Sugar skulls remain a central aspect of the holiday. The skulls themselves represent an important person who has passed. Traditionally, each skull carries the name of the loved one on its forehead. A key feature is “coronas,” or flower crowns made from colorful frosting and pieces of foil placed over the eyes and other parts of the skull to give it character.

Martinez uses plastic molds to make her sugar skulls, in several different styles. However, the most popular feature is her flower crown design, made from brightly colored frostings, pink, blue, red, yellow, and orange. The skulls range in various sizes from slightly larger than a sugar cube, to her largest, about the size of a softball.

When she was doing a skull-decorating workshop at Grand Park last year, a 5-year-old boy wandered by and she asked if he wanted to decorate one.

“Oh yeah, we learned about this for Dia de los Muertos,” he exclaimed, and while he had no cultural connection to the holiday, “he gave this whole little speech to my mom. And my mom was like, ‘Wow,’. And I told her growing up, ‘I was never taught any of this.’ This has evolved massively compared to when I was growing up.”

Her sentiments are definitely something I can relate to. Growing up in the ‘90s, it felt like you had to seek out opportunities to learn about Dia de los Muertos, whereas now it feels like it’s everywhere.

A tray of pan de muerto at La Central Bakery in East Los Angeles, which has been in Laura Martinez's family since 1984.

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Martinez' first experience with sugar skulls came as a child, attending a Day of the Dead celebration at Self Help Graphics in East Los Angeles (the community-based creative arts organization, which hosts one of the longest-running Dia De Los Muertos celebrations in the U.S., now in its 50th year). Her family was there to sell their bakery’s pan de muerto, a sweet bread associated with Dia de los Muertos. But the skulls on display caught Martinez’s eye. She felt inspired to make her own. Purchasing the molds, she started making her own the following year. She sold them in the bakery case in the front of the bakery for 25 cents.

Soon, Martinez sought to design the sugar skull independently, experimenting with different iconography, such as Hello Kitty skulls and Frankenstein — images that Martinez herself, as a millennial, gravitated toward, and, as it would turn out, others would too.

Since then, their popularity has grown. She has also expanded into making sugar cookies featuring her Dia de los Muertos designs and Hello Kitty characters. Her work has been featured with the Dodgers at their Dia De Los Dodgers event, where her work was displayed throughout the park, as well as at Self Help Graphics and Grand Park, where she teaches workshops with her mother.

Building Ofrendas

Another person who shared their story with me is Aldo Cruz, the Oaxacan-born master altar maker whose work has been featured at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery’s popular Day Of The Dead festivities for the past 17 years.

Aldo Cruz, a master altar builder, poses next to an in-consturction altar at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery.

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Day of the Dead is celebrated throughout Mexico, but according to Cruz, Oaxaca remains the most fiercely devoted to its traditional practices.

“It’s not Halloween,” he said. “Halloween is a festival where everything is horror, monsters, and costumes; this is imaginary. The Day of the Dead, for us Oaxacans, the celebration centers around the idea of love, affection, and respect.”

Cruz grew up close to the area known as San Pablo Villa de Mital, which, according to indigenous culture, is where the dead go to rest.

Dia De Los Muertos celebrations were always part of Cruz’s legacy. He grew up loving culture and the arts. During high school, he became fascinated with the iconography celebrating the remembrance of the dead. His mother was involved in their community's Day of the Dead celebrations, despite not always having much money to build altars and buy sugar skulls. After witnessing his mother's devotion to the craft during his early teens, he fell in love with altar making and decided to make his own — and started winning contests for his work.

Searching for a community

Cruz came to the United States in 2005 at age 25. He searched for his community and attended various Oaxacan cultural events around Los Angeles. At a Guelaguetza, an Oxacan cultural event at Normandie Park, he first heard about the Dia De Los Muertos celebration at Hollywood Forever. In the 15 years since participating in the celebration at the famed cemetery, Cruz has become one of the most renowned altar makers in the city.

Aldo Cruz, at left, and a co-worker construct an altar for the upcoming Day of the Dead event at Hollywood Forever Cemetery.

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When asked about what elements are required, Cruz has much to say. Showcasing that love begins with building an altar or ofrenda, which is central to remembering the dead. The ofrenda must reflect the elements of water, wind, earth, and fire.

Cruz’s altars are all-out elaborate affairs. Piled high with rows and rows of fresh produce — such as oranges, bananas, apples, and pumpkins — alongside a bottle of mezcal, sugar skulls, and religious statuettes, all swimming in a sea of orange marigolds

Cempasuchil, also known as marigolds, are a core element to the ofrendas built during Dia de Muertos.

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Food is central to the offerings. “Fruit, bread, ceramic objects, and candles are the common features that the earth offers us,” he said.

Placing favorite dishes such as tamales and plates of chicken mole on the altars is commonplace. Also, pan dulce and mugs of hot chocolate or atole, a masa-based drink, are usually featured. These offers are meant to entice our loves to visit us and have sustenance when traveling from the spirit world.

The meaning of photographs, flowers

Photographs of loved ones play an essential role, which lets the spirits of our loved ones know that presence is wanted in our homes. Flowers, specifically marigolds, or cempasúchitl, as they're known in the Nahuatl language, with their bright color and scent are meant to attract loved ones. They are said to have natural pesticides that keep the insects away from your food offerings.

This will be Aldo’s first Dia de los Muertos without his mother.

Elements for an altar Aldo Cruz is building at Hollywood Forever in preparation for the upcoming Day of the Dead event.

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She passed away right around last year's celebration. It’s an emotional time for him. When I ask if the celebration takes on a special significance for him, he tells me that it's been challenging to focus on due to the amount of work he has to do.

With each passing year, the celebration of Dia De Los Muertos takes on a great significance. As we age, people pass away, so the act of remembrance and the passage of time allows for a period of deeper reflection. Yet, now more than ever, I find myself drawn to the celebration's rituals to better understand myself and where I come from.

Topline:

New data shows Waymo’s robotaxis are crashing less often as they log more miles driven in Los Angeles. Experts recently joined LAist 89.3’s AirTalk with Larry Mantle and said the numbers are encouraging but don’t tell the whole story.

The data: Analyzed by the Los Angeles Times, it found:

• Crash rates are down from 57 crashes per million miles driven in 2023 to under six this year.
• The majority of Waymo-involved crashes happened while the vehicle was stopped. However, Waymos are designed to stop when they encounter issues.

Why safety is improving: Better technology, remote human help, and human drivers getting accustomed to Waymos are likely reasons safety is improving, Matthew Raifman of UC Berkeley told AirTalk listeners.

Concerns: Former federal auto safety regulator and UCLA law professor Ann Carlson stressed on air that Waymo’s improving safety record shouldn’t be extrapolated onto other autonomous car companies like Tesla’s Cybercab or Amazon’s Zoox, both of which have had recent safety issues.

Listen: To the full AirTalk segment above to hear about the challenges involved in making autonomous cars safe in every environment.

The Los Angeles Unified School District’s restrictions on generative artificial intelligence have drawn mixed reactions from education experts and students.

The district said in a statement to EdSource that its new Generative AI Ad Hoc Committee is working on specifics and will bring policy recommendations to the school board by the end of this academic year.

Here’s what experts and students have to say about the approach.

Responses have been edited for length and clarity.

Stephen Aguilar, professor of education at USC who leads the Center for Generative A.I. and Society

As a general rule, I am against blanket bans.

The core idea that I try to get across when we’re talking about screen time bans or AI bans is that we’re treating these technologies as though they are uniform, almost like a drug. AI is an umbrella term that refers to lots of different types of technologies.

Before everyone was talking about generative AI, cognitive tutors were AI-based tutoring systems that helped kids learn math. They can be very good at providing hints and diagnosing which concepts specifically students have issues with.

Teachers are often under-resourced and not respected in terms of the decisions that they end up making in the classroom. And policies aside, teachers end up defining almost 100% what the learning environment looks like for the kids that are under their charge.

So, I think that any real solution to this challenge involves giving teachers, and to a lesser extent parents, good information backed by sound science about the effects of different technologies.

Professional development is one way. Teachers need to be responsive to the emerging science about how kids learn — not because learning changes fundamentally, but because the tools we use to learn change.

Lucrecia Santibañez, professor of education and faculty co-director of UCLA’s Center for the Transformation of Schools 

I think [AI bans are] probably the correct approach. As we learn more, some of these policies may be revised.

It is easier to ban it in the elementary grades because kids are learning basic skills. They’re learning how to read, write, do basic math and understand concepts about science.

What gets tricky in high school is that every kid pretty much has a smartphone, so their ability to independently access AI is really high. As teachers get better trained to use AI in their own teaching and assignments, we may see more of a hybrid model.

One of the guiding pedagogical questions for me is: Is doing the tasks themselves an important part of what students are meant to do? If you want students to brainstorm, for example, some of that needs to be practiced first before it is delegated to an AI companion.

An analogy that makes sense is to treat classrooms like gyms. If you want to get fit and be able to run, you have to do it yourself. And it is the same way with education.

Chaitra Sure, senior at Taft Charter High School in Woodland Hills 

I don’t frequently use AI, but I do observe people in the classroom using it. I would say it’s mostly used to give the answer, and then they [students] just move on without really understanding.

I think this ban is mainly because a lot of students don’t know how to use AI effectively in an educational sense. But I don’t think the ban is going to really restrict usage. We can use precedents like the phone ban. I don’t see my peers using phones any less.

But I think what we need right now is some sort of class or lesson integrated into the curriculum that teaches us how to use artificial intelligence more effectively, which we’re not taught.

With the growing prevalence of artificial intelligence and technology beyond high school, in college and in careers, it’s going to become much more important to know how to use AI. I think what would be more effective is having a required curriculum or more opportunity in school to learn how to use artificial intelligence more effectively.

It’s going to be so helpful for the future.

This story was originally published by EdSource.

Bernie Sanders. Jane Fonda. There’s some star power endorsing each of the two Democratic candidates to be California’s next insurance commissioner.

Sure, it has historically been a little-known regulatory position. But its profile and importance are rising after a decade of some of the most destructive and deadliest wildfires in the state, which have disrupted one of the world’s largest insurance markets.

Not a homeowner? The commissioner's actions still affect your wallet if you're a renter, driver, pet owner, landlord, business owner, buyer of life insurance or possible user of workers' compensation.

If voters elect Jane Kim, the former San Francisco supervisor is proposing a drastic change that could have come out of the playbook of Sanders, her most famous backer: public disaster insurance.

If state Sen. Ben Allen wins, the movie star-backed candidate wants to get everyone on board to help reduce wildfire risk — individuals, communities, fire experts, local and state officials and the insurance industry — which he says would help solve the availability and affordability issues around homeowners insurance.

Voters are deciding between two candidates with a lot in common, including extensive track records of consumer advocacy, but who are offering very different ways of trying to solve the state’s insurance problems. At a debate between them moderated by CalMatters on Thursday, Kim characterized her opponent as offering to “tinker” and uphold the status quo, while Allen referred to Kim’s plans as “totally unprecedented and unmoored.”

The commissioner leads the Insurance Department, whose responsibilities include approving how much insurers can charge customers for property and casualty insurance, such as home, auto, commercial, renters, pet and travel.

A few years ago, some insurance companies stopped writing or renewing homeowner policies in areas with high fire risk, saying the state wasn’t approving their rate requests quickly enough so their prices weren’t matching the risk. That pushed homeowners into the FAIR Plan, a pool of insurers required to sell policies to those who can’t buy them from the regular market. The plan’s policies are generally more expensive and provide less coverage.

Last year, Commissioner Ricardo Lara rolled out new regulations that include faster rate reviews — when the Insurance Department looks at an insurer’s request to charge more money — and letting insurance companies factor reinsurance and catastrophe models into their rates. The department says the new rules are working because some insurers have said they plan to write more policies in the state again, though the state has not shared how many.

The new rules are generally leading to higher prices. Homeowners insurance rates in California rose 5% in the first half of the year, one of the largest increases in the nation, according to Insurify, a comparison site.

Meanwhile, average auto insurance premiums in the state are among the highest in the nation as replacement costs have gone up with the cost of vehicles. Both candidates said they hope to increase awareness of a state program that provides low-cost auto insurance to low-income drivers; Kim wants to expand it.

The Insurance Department reviews insurer practices and conducts investigations, though it’s limited in what it can order companies to do, as survivors of the Eaton and Palisades fires in January 2025 have found as they struggle to rebuild partly because of insurance-claim delays and denials.

The candidates’ records

One of the candidates was in a position to take action on the issue: The governor recently signed Allen’s Senate Bill 1209, which increases the commissioner’s ability to compel insurers to fix problems the department finds after an investigation.

For example, the department found that State Farm violated the law in its handling of claims from last year’s fires in the Los Angeles area and recommended penalties, but the case has yet to go to a hearing. Although the law Allen authored, which was co-sponsored by Lara, is not retroactive, it should give the future commissioner additional power to hold insurers more accountable.

Democratic state Senate President Pro Tem Monique Limón is among many fellow lawmakers endorsing Allen in the race.

She said the senator, who represents the Palisades, “jumped into action the second he heard about the fire.” That meant assessing the situation, rallying his staff and going to his district immediately afterward, she said.

“From the start to now, he has been active,” Limón said. “He has authored legislation, held town halls and brought stakeholders together.”

She worked with him on the climate bond that voters approved in 2024 that is now helping fund water infrastructure, wildfire prevention and more. Allen, who also authored a landmark plastics law to reduce pollution that continues to face blowback, has been a champion of the environment — hence the support from Fonda’s climate political action committee.

“He has been able to land some of these difficult deals,” Limón said.

Allen has been a state senator since 2014 and is terming out. In his last legislative session, he authored two other laws that will affect the insurance market: One will establish a state-backed loan program for homeowners to upgrade and harden their homes against fire. The other will require insurers to give homeowners more details if they’re planning to drop their coverage, and give homeowners time to fix the issues to try to retain their insurance.

“This law’s going to help people help existing coverage, and keep them off the FAIR Plan,” Allen told CalMatters. “We have to think about holistic solutions.”

Kim has not held an elected office since 2019. Her most recent jobs were California director for the Working Families Party, and before that, California political director for Sanders’ 2020 presidential campaign.

A fellow former member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors recalled Kim’s impact during her time there. It includes helping pass the first $15 minimum wage ordinance in the state, securing tenant protections and providing free community college for the city’s residents.

“I got to witness for eight years a woman that was tenacious and relentless,” said Malia Cohen, the state controller who’s running for another term.

Cohen said she and Kim represented different districts in San Francisco and sometimes had opposing priorities: “She has been my enemy and my friend.”

She recalled working with Kim to “ban the box” that formerly incarcerated people used to have to check on job applications, a city ordinance that became a model for the state.

At a rally last week in San Francisco where Sanders campaigned for Proposition 40, the billionaire wealth tax, Kim delivered a speech in which she chalked up her grit to her mother and being drawn to public service from her father, both immigrants.

From left, insurance commissioner candidate Jane Kim, U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders and U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna join hands and wave to supporters during a “Ballots Over Billionaires” rally at the Curran Theater in San Francisco on Oct. 3, 2026.

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“My mother taught me to negotiate relentlessly in a world that did not see her, and it is what allowed me to walk into a room full of older white men and demand 40% affordable and middle-income housing,” Kim said, referring to her dealings with developers in San Francisco.

“She passed legislation in San Francisco that has shaped the California landscape,” Cohen said.

The candidates’ platforms

Kim and Allen have a lot in common. Each has promised to be tough on the insurance industry, including by pushing for insurer transparency and creating public report cards for them.

Both candidates have support from different labor, environmental and civil rights groups. But with two Democrats vying for the position for the first time, the endorsements reflect the divide within the party that has been highlighted by the victories of progressive candidates elsewhere, such as that of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

The California Democratic Party endorsed Allen, while the California Labor Federation endorsed Kim. Both U.S. senators from California, Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla, endorsed Allen. U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna, the Democrat from Silicon Valley who has long been aligned with Sanders, endorsed Kim.

“I think Jane is a strong progressive,” Khanna told CalMatters in San Francisco earlier this week. “She understands that the big oil companies should be paying for the extreme conditions that are causing wildfires in California.”

Kim’s proposal for public disaster insurance, which she said would be funded by premiums policyholders already pay to insurance companies, would allow consumers to keep their existing coverage. It would split off fire and flood coverage. The state would run the program and could invest some of the revenue from premiums into wildfire risk mitigation and not into the fossil-fuel industry like insurance companies do, she said.

Kim’s plan aligns with proposals by experts who say the current insurance model is failing because of growing risks, and that public involvement is the answer. A report by the California Earthquake Authority, which was tasked with studying how the state can boost its catastrophe resiliency, includes an analysis of a state-backed wildfire insurer.

The insurance industry and some consumer advocates have slammed her plan, saying it’s a bad idea to shift catastrophic burden to the state. A San Francisco Chronicle endorsement of Allen said Kim would “blow up” the insurance system during a time when the regulations Lara implemented last year need more time to work.

Kim said onstage at the rally with Sanders in San Francisco last week: “They will tell us our ideas are too expensive or magical thinking, but the status quo is not the safest path. It is the most expensive one.”

She has pointed to New Zealand’s public disaster system as an example. At the debate on Thursday, Allen voiced a frequent criticism: The coverage that system provides is limited and doesn’t include wildfire.

“What matters is not the type of catastrophe but that we are covering catastrophe, and that we would work to cover up to a median price of a home,” Kim responded. She said New Zealand covers catastrophes that exist in their country, like mudslides and earthquakes.

Kim also wants to create a public option for low-cost auto insurance by expanding the state’s existing program for low-income drivers. Allen says that would allow drivers who have more resources to take advantage.

Allen’s plan for comprehensive wildfire risk mitigation — which the recent earthquake authority’s report analyzed, too — would include pushing the insurance industry to do more than “pay lip service” to reducing fire risk. Some homeowners have complained that their home-hardening efforts haven’t led to significant savings on their premiums, or ensured that they will be able to buy affordable insurance.

“The commissioner is uniquely positioned to force the industry to the table to be a part of the solution, to help to incentivize and reward real, meaningful resilience and risk reduction all over the state,” he told CalMatters.

At the debate, Allen said his approach is “grounded in the realities we’re facing now, and how we actually fix the system as it is.”

Allen has said his plan includes thinking about mitigation as early as the development process. “We shouldn’t be building new construction that is irresponsible in high-risk areas,” he said earlier this year, before he and Kim ended up being the top two vote-getters in the June primary election.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.