Death Through the Eyes of the Children : Students pay homage to their deceased classmates and loved ones as part of a Dia de los Muertos commemoration on Olvera Street.

Nine-year-old Christina Mariscal is saddened by the drive-by shootings and other violence that have claimed so many Los Angeles youths. But rather than dwell on her sorrow, Christina has taken the tragedy of death and turned it into a celebration of young lives.

As part of the Dia de los Muertos--Day of the Dead--commemorations taking place today and Monday, the children of merchants and workers on Olvera Street have created an altar at the Pueblo Gallery that pays homage to children who have died of AIDS, shootings, child abuse and other causes.

“We’re doing it because we care about the kids. We want them to know that just because they’re dead we haven’t forgot about them,” said Christina, a student at Ribet Academy in Eagle Rock and one of 22 children ages 2 to 18 who created the altar. About 4,000 Los Angeles schoolchildren have visited the gallery over the past two weeks to add their reflections on death.

Celebrated in Mexico and areas of the United States influenced by Latino culture, Dia de los Muertos is a time when people honor the dead by rejoicing in the freeing of their spirits and remembering those who have passed on. The holiday is a mixture of the Roman Catholic celebration of All Soul’s Day on Nov. 2 and the ancient beliefs of the Mayans, Aztecs, Toltecs and other indigenous peoples of Mexico.

In customary style, the Pueblo Gallery children’s altar features photographs of the dead and is decorated with flowers, papier-mache figures, skeletons, toys and a picture of the Virgin Mary. There are also the ofrendas , or offerings, which in this case are Mexican candies.

Ginette Rondeau, the exhibit curator, said the altar is meant not only to celebrate the lives of the city’s children who have died, but also to call attention to some of the underlying causes of the violence that claimed them--poverty, unemployment and broken families.

“Our children are dying every day here (as) a result of how we’ve let society get,” Rondeau said. “We’re all responsible.”

“We want people to know there are a lot of children suffering around the world--especially in Los Angeles,” said 12-year-old Marina Matus, another exhibit contributor.

Rondeau said many of the schoolchildren have painted pictures and written poems in Spanish and English about the deaths of classmates and loved ones. Among the commemorations is a photograph of Ricardo Garcia, 14, a Belvedere Junior High student who was gunned down Oct. 2 on a Boyle Heights street corner.

The trauma of the children’s experiences is captured in their words and drawings.

“I feel sad because my grandma died,” said Evelyn Barajas, 6, a first-grader at Vaughn Street Elementary School in San Fernando, as she drew a stick figure of her grandmother inside an orange cross.

Next to her were a dozen or so posters echoing similar sentiments of Los Angeles’ children: “When girls and boys die, I feel like I die too,” wrote a child from Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School. Underneath was a scribbled drawing of bleeding children shooting each other with guns.

“When someone I like dies, it breaks my heart,” wrote another, who attached a picture of a brown coffin beneath a heart pierced by an arrow.

“We’re teaching them how to deal with death,” Rondeau said.

Creating the poems and pictures is a form of healing that allows the children to come to terms with violence on the streets and losing classmates or loved ones, said Desdemona Cardoza, a Cal State Los Angeles social psychologist.

“It can be extremely therapeutic for the children,” she said, adding that youths in crime-ridden areas can suffer from a post-traumatic stress syndrome similar to that experienced by Vietnam War veterans and people in war-torn countries.

As part of the exhibit, which runs through Nov. 15, nonprofit organizations such as the Boy Scouts and the American Red Cross will have booths today at Olvera Street to pass out information regarding health and other issues affecting children.

Back inside the gallery, a tourist from Wisconsin said she was moved by the children’s work. “I think it’s a wonderful idea,” said Jane Levenduscky. “I think it will teach other children a respect for life.”

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The Eternal Rest

During the past two weeks, Los Angeles schoolchildren have written poems and drawn pictures as part of the Dia de los Muertos exhibit at Olvera Street’s Pueblo Gallery. Many deal with the loss of classmates to violence. The following poem was written in Spanish by a student at Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School in South-Central Los Angeles.

Pero cuando llega la hora tiene miedo.

Pero cuando te mueras tienes un descanso muy eterno y muy bonito.

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When a living person suffers, he wants to die.

But when the time comes he is afraid.

But when you die you go to an eternal and beautiful rest.