Día de los Muertos Calenda Celebration Comes Alive

The beauty, artistry, and historical traditions were in full force as the ceremonial Oaxacan procession known as the “Día de los Muertos Calenda,” came to life in downtown Santa Barbara on Sunday, October 25. This was third annual Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara–sponsored “Calenda” ceremony and parade — joyously back in town once again after an absence last year due to safety concerns around ICE. 

The event, which grew from 1,500 participants in 2023 to almost 10,000 the following year, returned to State Street, with several thousand in attendance, if not quite up to 2024 totals. 

Now the city’s “largest Indigenous-immigrant-led cultural procession,” the free, family-friendly event began at Santa Barbara Museum of Art and included dance, live music, altar-building, and a lively public procession, winding up at MCASB’s Paseo Nuevo home. 

The Día de los Muertos has quickly become a treasured part of Santa Barbara’s cultural tradition, with groups represented from Zapotec, Mixtec, Triqui, and other Oaxacan and Guerrero Indigenous immigrant communities, and music and dance participants coming from this area as well as Oxnard, Santa Maria, Los Angeles, and elsewhere in California.