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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Sugar skulls created by Laura Martinez of East Los Sweets.

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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.

The Los Angeles World Cup host committee has quietly posted its guidance on human rights after months of speculation over where the plan was and when it would be published.

Advocates had pushed the committee, an arm of the Los Angeles Sports & Entertainment Commission, to produce its plan. But now that it's out, they're not satisfied with what they're seeing.

The human rights guidance is required by FIFA and outlined on the host committee's website. It includes a list of online resources including where to file complaints with various local and state level agencies and a summary of local, state and federal laws protecting human and civil rights. The committee is also touting a partnership with L.A. County in which people can call 211 to report a concern during the tournament.

"Los Angeles is weeks away from hosting one of the largest sporting events in the world, and yet what has been posted is not a plan,” Stephanie Richard, director of the Sunita Jain Anti‑Trafficking Initiative at Loyola Law School, said in a statement. “It is a list of laws and hotline numbers."

The human rights document also skirts fears around ICE and its potential presence at the tournament and surrounding celebrations. Todd Lyons, the agency's head, said earlier this year that ICE's investigatory branch will play a key role in security for the tournament.

But ICE and immigration enforcement aren't mentioned on the host committee's web page on human rights or in its outline of its approach to human rights. "Immigration status" only gets a mention in the list of existing anti-discrimination laws.

"It certainly could have been much stronger," Angelica Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights in Los Angeles, said of the plan. She added that her organization participated in a roundtable on the plan, and she was disappointed ICE and recent immigration sweeps weren't mentioned in the resulting document.

"In order for all of this to happen, immigrant workers are part of it," she said of the World Cup. "Your hotel workers, your service workers, stadium workers, drivers." 

LAist reached out to spokespeople for the host committee for comment via email, phone and text, but did not hear back in time for publication. FIFA's press team also did not respond to an email from LAist.

According to the host committee's website, the human rights plan is the result of coordination with the city and county of Los Angeles, the city of Inglewood, and 14 roundtable discussions held in the fall of 2025.

"As a non-profit organization, the Host Committee’s role is primarily and necessarily focused on aligning and collaborating with governmental and non-governmental organizations," the document sums up the committee's approach.

The plan also promises more actions, including "Know Your Rights" training for L.A. residents and visitors and "Know Your Responsibilities" training for businesses and vendors. The committee also says it will develop a "rapid response" strategy to respond to potential problems at the tournament.

Available details on those plans were scant. And with the tournament just 30 days away, labor unions and community groups are continuing to voice concerns about potential ICE presence at SoFi Stadium and other potential consequences of the tournament coming to town.

The mayor of Arcadia has agreed to plead guilty to a charge she acted as an agent for China, federal prosecutors announced Monday. She has resigned from her position with the city.

Eileen Wang, 58, faces one count of acting as an illegal agent of a foreign government, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. The charge carries a potential sentence of up to 10 years in federal prison.

What we know about the criminal case

According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Wang and Yaoning “Mike” Sun of Chino Hills worked at the direction of the Chinese government and with individuals based in the U.S. to promote pro-People’s Republic of China propaganda in the United States. Those actions occurred between 2020 and 2022, prosecutors said.

According to federal prosecutors, Wang and Sun operated a website — known as U.S. News Center — billed as a news source for the local Chinese American community in Los Angeles County. They posted content on the site, described as "pre-written articles," based on directives from Chinese government officials.

Sun, 65, pleaded guilty in October 2025 in federal court to acting as an illegal agent of a foreign government. He is serving a four-year federal prison sentence.

Prosecutors also said Wang communicated with John Chen, whom they described as “a high-level member of the [Chinese government] intelligence apparatus,” in November 2021, and asked him to post an article from her website.

In a group chat, Wang referenced the article and wrote: “This is what the Ministry of Foreign Affairs wants to send,” according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Chen pleaded guilty in New York to acting as an illegal agent of the People’s Republic of China and conspiracy to bribe a public official. In 2024, he was sentenced to 20 months in federal prison.

What's next

Wang, who was elected to the City Council in November 2022, was expected to make her first appearance in U.S. District Court Monday afternoon.

Citing a plea agreement, prosecutors said she's expected to enter the guilty plea within the next few weeks.

Arcadia's mayor is selected from the elected council members. A post on the city's website announced that Wang had resigned her position as of Monday and that a new mayor would be picked from the remaining council members at the next meeting.

The Supreme Court on Monday gave itself more time to consider a national ban on telemedicine access to the abortion pill mifepristone.

Justice Samuel Alito extended an earlier order he issued by three more days, so rules for prescribing mifepristone online or through the mail remain in effect through Thursday at a minimum.

The case at issue

The tumult over the future of telemedicine access to mifipristone started on May 1 with a ruling from the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. That ruling re-instituted prescribing rules from before the pandemic that required patients to receive mifepristone in person in a doctor's office or clinic.

The Food and Drug Administration determined that the rule was medically unnecessary in 2021. The state of Louisiana sued last fall, arguing that telemedicine access undermines the state's abortion ban.

What is telemedicine abortion?

The telemedicine abortion process starts with a patient connecting with a healthcare provider on the phone or online. If the patient is eligible, that provider can prescribe two medications — mifepristone and another pill called misoprostol. Patients can pick up the medicine at a local pharmacy, or providers can mail the drugs to a patient's home.

That access is a big part of the reason why the number of abortions nationally has actually increased since the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion in 2022. Now, most abortions in the U.S. use this combination of medications, and one quarter happen via telemedicine.

After the 5th Circuit ruling, some providers said they would continue offering telemedicine access to abortion medication using a different protocol that involves higher doses of misoprostol and no mifepristone.

Researchers say that method is just as safe and effective, but tends to cause more pain for patients and more side effects, like nausea and diarrhea. Misoprostol has other medical uses, such as treating gastric ulcers and hemorrhage, and has been on the market longer than mifepristone. It is likely to remain fully accessible, even if mifepristone is restricted.

Since the FDA's prescribing rules for medications apply to the whole country, a change to the rules about how mifepristone can be accessed has national impact. That means it affects states with constitutionally-protected access to abortion, states with criminal bans, like Louisiana, and all states in between.

States' rights

Nearly two dozen Democratic-led states submitted an amicus brief in this case, writing that the appeals court decision put the policy choices of states with bans above the choices of states "that have made the different but equally sovereign determinations to promote access to abortion care."

There are also stakes related to the power of FDA and other expert agencies to set rules. While the Trump administration's FDA did not respond to the Supreme Court's request for briefs, a group of former leaders of the agency, who served under mainly Democratic and some Republican presidents, wrote about this in an amicus brief.

They defended the FDA's process in approving the medication and modifying the rules for prescribing it, and say the appeals court decision "would upend FDA's gold-standard, science-based drug approval system."

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