The Story behind the Book: Dia de Muertos (Sula)
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The story behind Dia de Muertos is pretty simpe, really. Sula, the parish cat at Old Mission San Juan Bautista, already had published five books about the Mission and about Catholic customs and beliefs, all of them in English. The parish, however, was pretty equally divided between English speakers and Spanish speakers with two Masses each Sunday in each language and holiday and holy day Masses bilingual. (The community of San Juan Bautista is a pretty evenly divided bilingual community, as well.)
Sula, the parish cat, was present at all Masses. She was beloved by all parishioners. The "Sula books" were written to help raise funds for a very expensive retrofit requirement. (The church sits atop the intersection of three major fault lines and has twice fallen from earthquakes high on the Richter scale). Although most Spanish speakers in the parish could understand English, they felt left out of the Sula project. They wanted a book that spoke to their community in their language -- and they asked for it.
Sula's amanuensis was a native speaker of Spanish. Like most English speakers in the parish, she could understand Spanish and, with some help, thought she would be able to produce a book in Spanish.
The topic seemed obvious: Day of the Day. Day of the Dead was a very significant holiday in the parish and in the San Juan Bautista community, and the altar of the dead in the church was always elaborate. The holiday was begun in Mexico, where many of the parishioners had relatives and a common travel destination for many in the community. The parish priest, a bilingual speaker who attended school in California and seminar in Mexico, was considered one of the international experts on the history and customs of Day of the Dead. The topic seemed a natural for Sula's book #6.
It would also fall right in line with two other books by Sula: Christmas at the Mission and Easter at the Mission. One reason that Sula's books were popular outside (as well as inside) of the parish were the efforts made to explain certain aspects of Catholicism that are not easily found elsewhere because these books go a little deeper into the history and actual customs than most books on those topics do.
Thus, the book was conceived. The amanuensis did her best to gather information about the history and customs from the usual research sources. She organized the book into chapters about specific subtopics: practices, food, history, and more. Each chapter was accompanied by photos of Sula and the related activities. A favorite was Sula sitting on the altar of the dead amidst all the photos of deceased relatives, as if she were guarding them, waiting for their spirits to come back on the special day.
When the book was ready, edited by a teacher of Spanish, and proofread by a native speaker familiar with Sula's other books, Sula's amanuensis passed the book to the expert priest. He had man comments and much knowledge not available from routine research sources.
When he was finished providing his input, the book was ready. Typeset and printed just in time for that year's Day of the Dead (Dia de Muertos).
For more posts about Sula and her books, click HERE.
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