Mexican Americans in Los Angeles have long celebrated their departed loved ones with altars on Día de Los Muertos.
Besides honoring the dead, these large, colorful sculptures — known in Spanish as ofrendas —also are often used as a form of protest art.
Drawing on this practice, organizers with the nonprofit Community Power Collective honored Emma De Paz, a longtime street vendor arrested in a June 19 immigration raid outside a Home Depot in Hollywood, through an altar installation at Mariachi Plaza. De Paz was active in efforts to decriminalize sidewalk vending…