Appreciate, don’t appropriate this Halloween

Illustration by Tyler Carpenter

Halloween is one of the only days a person can transform themselves into anything their imagination desires. But dressing up by appropriating a culture that’s not your own has its own set of consequences.

Last September, Disney pulled their “Moana”-themed children’s costumes after it created a cultural appropriation uproar. Over the past few years, the popularity of traditional Calaveras used during Día de los Muertos (aka sugar skulls) has increased. Calaveras are often used in connection with Catholic holidays to decorate the gravestones of the deceased. But in the U.S., they are all over Halloween stores to be used to decorate a costume or someone’s front porch. The Día de los Muertos tradition dates back to the Aztec era and has survived more than 500 years of colonization, where it’s now an event that celebrates the lives of the deceased, instead of an event that mourns them every Nov. 1-2. However, commercialism has stolen the aesthetics from the sacred holiday.

Costumes of Pocahontas, or others that include American Indian headdresses, Japanese kimonos and ponchos are still rampant in Halloween stores today and not acceptable, as they represent a culture that should not be commercialized. According to Cambridge Dictionary, the definition of cultural appropriation is “the act of taking or using things from a culture that is not your own, especially without showing that you understand or respect this culture.”

If you want to dress up as someone else’s culture, just know that you may be exploiting a culture that’s not your own.  If you want to learn about someone else’s culture, get out of your social circle and emerge yourself in someone else’s world. Go to museums, educate yourself and look up the history of marginalized groups, study civil rights activists, and put down that sombrero. Happy Halloween.

Kimberly Bojorquez

Kimberly Bojórquez is a Los Angeles native currently pursuing her Bachelor of Arts in Communication with an emphasis in journalism, and a minor in Latin American Studies. From 2017-18 she served as the editor-in-chief of the UVU Review and worked at ABC4's morning show "Good Things Utah", Salt Lake City Weekly and the Daily Herald.

She has written stories that relate to national issues, local crime and social justice. In her spare time, she loves to take photos, hike Utah's national parks and attend live rock concerts.

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7 years ago

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Travis Lee Clark
Travis Lee Clark
7 years ago

I appreciate the author’s sentiment and want to express the utmost respect for their viewpoint. I also however want to point out that many things that we consider to be native to our respective cultures are in fact, not original to them, and are vastly removed from their original culture or context. For example, I want to point out an Mexican object of some significance to the current discussion. It is the biombo. The biombo was a room partition screen, usually with a gold leaf background and a decorative narrative panel. They are common in viceregal Mexico from the 17th C. onward. They are a rich and beautiful example of Mexican heritage. And they also are an example of pure cultural appropriation. They come originally not from Mexico, but from Japan and were introduced across the pacific trade routes. Mexicans loved them, copied them and changed them, often without any consultation of the original culture or context and made them their own. And they are not the only example. Atrial crosses? A fusion of native Tequitqui sculpture and Iberian tradition. The Alfarje ceilings and Alfiz frames on meany Mexican catholic churches come not from any native tradition, in fact they don’t come from any Christian tradition at all, but were borrowed from Muslims, and as such are totally divorced from their original context. They were appropriated simply because Spaniards and Mexicans, Criollos and Mestizos, loved them and wanted to emulate them and they did so, without much concern for the original culture’s feelings. In fact, how could they? Cultural appropriation is unavoidable and completely natural and often productive.

I teach Non-Western cultures as a lecturer here on campus, and I try to encourage sensitivity to all cultures and to the original context when possible. but at the end of the day, human society is complex, and unpredictable. We trade, we fight, we exchange ideas. And most of it is not nefarious in intent or purpose, it’s just natural. Much of it is even benevolent and positive. No one could have ever predicted that Italian Renaissance painters would take such a liking for Islamic prayer rugs that they would paint them behind the heads of the Virgin Mary, or that Muslims would enjoy crusader Gothic arches so much they would incorporate them into their mosques. Or that Buddhists would be inspired by Hellenistic Sculpture or Impressionists would fall in love with Japanese prints or Persians with Portuguese costume. Without cultural appropriation there is no West African Batik, a technique innovated in SE Asia and brought to them by the Dutch. Yet is Batik NOT African? Is it not cultural appropriation? Appropriation often is indistinguishable from appreciation, and what one culture thinks is offensive, another sees as positive.

I agree that the best way to appreciate a culture is to educate yourself about it, and try to immerse yourself in it whenever possible and I applaud the author’s advice, but I think the author lays down a standard that is simply too high. For many that is not possible, and for some, the appropriation of a theme or motif, may be the only way they can ever approach it. Cultural exchange is good, and not always exploitative, and even the less sensitive and messy aspects of it can create amazing beautiful things. Let’s be kind to each other, sensitive when we can, but always remember, we are human, and that ultimately, human culture belongs to everyone for good and bad. Let’s try to emphasize the good.

Thank you,

Travis Lee Clark