Felicia Montes on D铆a de los Muertos, art in motion and teaching at 色中色
During this year鈥檚 celebrations of , faculty member Felicia Montes shared her passion for art and culture beyond the classroom, helping students to develop a new D铆a de los Muertos installation at Carolyn Campagna Kleefeld Contemporary Art Museum.
The new display is an ofrenda, an altar celebrants traditionally display to honor departed loved ones, centered on the figure of a skeletal woman and a wreath of flores de papel in blazing orange, both rising above collected photographs, candles, paper skulls and other art. Montes, an assistant professor of Chicano and Latino Studies, is also helping to coordinate a Oct. 28 D铆a de los Muertos celebration at Anatol Center, to feature additional student-made ofrendas. Montes teaches courses in ethnic studies and Chicanx tradition in Mexican and Southwestern art, engaging students where academics intersect with reality.
Q: How are you hoping the campus will participate in D铆a de los Muertos celebrations?
Felicia Montes: We鈥檙e planning a very inclusive Day of the Dead, or ancestor celebration event. What I鈥檝e found through my classes is that not everybody has information about it, or if they do, it鈥檚 usually from a movie. Or, some people connect to it and have been celebrating for so long. This celebration is to honor all the different experiences and create an open space for people to come and gather in community on campus.
Q: You teach a course on heritage art in Mexico and the Southwest. How do you want students to be inspired?
FM: That class is beautiful for me. I can bring all my knowledge to share with students. Academically, finding articles and books that really speak about the history of Chicanx and Latinx arts, music, performance and dance. Part of the learning outcome is to create. Aztec dancers spoke about history, but we also learned and moved. We brought Puerto Rican bomba music, now more known about because of the popularity of plena and bomba, Bad Bunny, and how he鈥檚 infused that into a new genre of music. We had others, including corridos and silkscreen art.
Even if people weren鈥檛 artists, musicians or dancers, they really spoke about the importance of being able to have different types of learning and embodied knowledge.
Q: Who are some of your favorite Latine artists? Which movements have influenced you?
FM: The Chicanx/Latinx art movement is based in social justice from the 鈥60s and 鈥70s. Practicing artists who have moved from the mural movement into galleries and museums and are now being recognized, as they should, have really influenced me in a big way.
Chicana feminist artists, people like my mentor/femtor, who I took classes with at Cal State Northridge in my master鈥檚 program, is Yreina Cervantez. Others like Celia Herrera Rodriguez, Ester Hernandez 鈥 all of them bring oftentimes a traditional art form but also new genres and speak about their experiences connected to historical and sociopolitical events.
When I share my experiences as a young person or in college, learning about them or seeing a poem that reflected my own experience and how it opened my own eyes and academic brain, I think that connects with students because they鈥檙e going through that same process.
Q: What has teaching about Latine and ethnic studies taught you about people鈥檚 awareness of cultures and communities?
FM: I think it鈥檚 important to be able to speak with people about their own experiences; what people are taught in K-12, what鈥檚 the mainstream narrative. We speak about counternarratives. What type of history, information or literature they were exposed to prior to these classes, and what they鈥檙e interested in learning. For ethnic studies, I believe for many it鈥檚 an opening of genres. It opens the mind to new literature, new history.
Q: You co-founded Mujeres de Ma铆z, which supports Latine and indigenous women. Your work with this nonprofit has paralleled your academic career. How have those experiences informed your teaching?
FM: As a student at UCLA, I co-founded Mujeres de Ma铆z, or Women of the Corn. Its mission is to improve women鈥檚 overall and mental health by creating empowering community spaces. We focus on holistic wellness, health education, cultural arts, arts exhibitions and publishing. It was always important to bring academic knowledge and see how it can be accessible to the community.
Students here relate to being able to speak about not only current events but their own personal experiences. Learning about the walkouts of the 1960s in East L.A., looking for better education and eventually, looking to have Chicano studies departments. We talk about how now there is a Chicanx/Latinx studies department. Maybe they鈥檙e taking the class for the very first time, and maybe it鈥檚 just for a requirement, but what does that mean?
One of the class projects is an educational journey timeline. Did they have programs that helped them go to college? That鈥檚 related to one of the student-learning outcomes about resistance movements, specifically the Chicanx/Latinx walkouts of 1968. One question is, 鈥淗ow can you relate it to current events, other than your personal experience?鈥
Note: Montes co-edited 鈥淢ujeres de Ma铆z en Movimiento鈥 a 2024 book covering the history of Mujeres de Ma铆z. The work is a finalist in three 2025 International Latino Book Awards categories.
