Adelante Charter School Honors Culture, Community with Día de los Muertos Festival

Adelante Charter School hosted its annual Día de los Muertos on Sunday, bringing together hundreds of students, family, and Eastside community members to celebrate not only the Mexican tradition of “Day of the Dead,” but also to celebrate the school’s 25th anniversary as a dual-language immersion school in Santa Barbara.

The event was packed with traditional Latino music, dances, food, and a community “ofrenda” — or altar to the dead — created by Adelante’s 6th-grade students and parents. Each grade performed a choreographed dance, complete with matching costumes and face paint, while vendors hosted booths with games, photos, ticket raffles, bounce houses, and arts and crafts activities.

Between the student dance performances, Adelante boardmembers and staff received recognition from state and local government representatives, who showed up to present certificates in honor of the school’s 25th year. These included awards of recognition from Mexican Ambassador Ricardo Santana Velázquez, 24th District Representative Salud Carbajal, Assemblymember Gregg Hart, and soon-to-be California Senate President pro Tempore (and Eastside Santa Barbara local) Monique Limón.

Juan Antonio Cid Dávila, a representative from the Mexican Consulate in Oxnard, spoke on behalf of Mexican Ambassador Santana Velázquez about the importance of dual-language institutions such as Adelante.

“Adelante was born during challenging times, when many immigrant families faced uncertainty and fear due to the immigration policies,” Dávila said. “Yet, even in these difficult moments, the school became a place of hope, a safe space where children of Mexican heritage can attend school with pride, in two languages and with two cultures.”

Sergio Arriaga is the father of two Adelante students, in the 5th and 2nd grade, and he said the school has been a unique and enriching experience for the entire family. Arriaga said his first language was Spanish, and Adelante has been a safe space for his sons to learn about their traditions and culture while getting a well-rounded education overall.

“It’s a great experience,” Arriaga said. “It’s like a big community family.”

Many Adelante Charter School parents are involved in volunteer groups, parent-student organizations, or have joined on as school boardmembers. This has created a tight-knit group of “parent-peers,” Arriaga said, which adds to the sense of community for the entire school.

Arriaga’s father-in-law, David Zavala, says the “family feeling” he gets from Adelante staff and teachers is what makes the school special. “It’s always a caring feeling from the teachers, staff, everybody — they always seem to care,” Zavala said.

Zavala said he remembers growing up acting as the interpreter for his Spanish-speaking parents, but after he moved to a primarily English-speaking neighborhood, he said he gradually lost the ability to speak Spanish fluently. When his grandsons were born, he said it was important to his family that they learned to be able to communicate in both English and Spanish.

He said that he felt that Adelante had created a space where families could feel safe from the current fears over immigration, and that teachers and staff helped the children understand what was happening in the world around them. “That is what this school has done,” Zavala said. “When I was in school, I had no idea who the president was. But they teach the kids to understand what’s going on.”

Adelante Charter School hosted its annual Día de los Muertos community festival in Eastside Santa Barbara on Sunday, November 2. The festival was filled with traditional Mexican music, dances, games, and food, and this year’s event comes as the dual-language immersion school celebrates its 25th year. | Credit: Ingrid Bostrom

Principal Javier Bolivar, who joined five years ago and helped the school navigate the challenges of the pandemic, said the recent success of the school — which achieved unprecedented test scores in both English and math — was a testament to the culture created by teachers, staff, and parents.

“This is a special school. We have a great team, very community-oriented teachers, and a very caring board and parents, and things are just taking off,” Bolivar said. “It’s great to become a California distinguished school, and to know we are competing with the best schools in the state, and now this year our scores were even higher.”

This year, the school has maintained a united front when dealing with renewed fears over immigration enforcement and reports that U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was seen in the neighborhoods surrounding the Eastside Santa Barbara campus. Bolivar said that when parents feel unsafe to drive to drop off or pick up their kids from school, staff will take it upon themselves to line up a safe ride for the students. Last week, Bolivar personally went to give one student a ride to school when a parent expressed fear about going in public after ICE arrests were reported just a few blocks away.

Despite the fears, Adelante staff ensured that Sunday’s Día de los Muertos festival was safe for the several hundred that showed up throughout the day.

“It’s been affecting us, but we are working together, and the parents know they can count on us,” Bolivar said. “It’s been a long journey, but it’s great.”