In some Latino cultures, the Day of the Dead marks the time of year when the veil between our world and the afterlife is thinnest, allowing people to honor their dead loved ones with colorful celebrations.
On Maui, the disaster response organization Roots Reborn has celebrated the Day of the Dead, also known as Dia de los Muertos, each year to honor the lives lost during the 2023 Maui wildfires.
The group was founded in the wake of the devastation to help immigrants and undocumented migrants recover from the loss.
Since then, they've led trainings to educate the public on their rights, signed people up for health insurance and provided immigration legal services.
HPR's Jacob Aloi spoke with the organization's outreach and events coordinator Rachel Kaulupali and director of operations Annie Alvelais to learn more about their upcoming Day of the Dead celebration and fundraiser.
"Our first Dia de los Muertos Celebration wasn't really designed to be an event," Alvelais told HPR. "It was a space for our community to grieve the way that we know how."
"Here we are hosting the event in a space that knows our ancestors are still with us, and we carry them everywhere we go, and they join us in every room that they walk into," she continued.
"And I think that's a really, really beautiful synergy of just … that Indigenous knowledge."
More information about the upcoming event can be found here.
This story aired on The Conversation on Oct. 23, 2026. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. Jinwook Lee adapted this story for the web.
