Considering Commemoration in Latinx Communities: Notes on the Politics of Re(membering)

This essay examines the concept of “commemoration” in the field of folkloristics using a lens of Latinx community practice and process. The author examines how commemorative acts are more than moments of remembering, but instead are also practices of a re-animation of social presences. By centering the social locations of community actors, we can understand commemoration as an engagement with historical violence from which the traumatic impact is manifested in the present moment. Rather than documenting a specific commemorative act, this essay explores the value of commemorative processes as curated spaces of identity formation in racialized public spheres.