Actress Jessica Alba, Latina entrepreneurs tout Día de los Muertos

LOS ANGELES — There are diapers with colorful displays of animals, cars and trains, Disney characters — so why not offer ones with the iconic skull image of "La Catrina" to celebrate the Mexican Día de los Muertos, or the Day of the Dead?

Actor Jessica Alba, co-founder of the Honest Company, which sells baby and family products, has teamed up with two fellow Mexican American entrepreneurs, Patty Rodriguez and Ariana Stein, the founders of Lil' Libros, a bilingual children's book company. The three have collaborated to commemorate the Día de los Muertos tradition, which originated in Mexico and is celebrated on Nov. 1 and 2.

In interviews with Noticias Telemundo, they said diapers and books highlighting the Day of the Dead tradition are a way to celebrate Latino culture and identity, bilingualism, family and community.

“This to me was a way to bring it forward and celebrate Lil’ Libros, celebrate Honest and come together and create something really unique," said Alba, speaking of the products, including the books on La Catrina and Día de los Muertos, which are sold in the Honest Company website. "We have the ‘La Catrina’ diaper, inspired by ‘La Catrina: Emotions-Emociones' book, which is one of my son's favorites," Alba said.

According to Rodriguez and Stein, their publishing company's goal was to create things and toys they didn't have when they were growing up.

“When I was pregnant with my first son 14 years ago, I started thinking about the way I wanted to raise him, as a madre (mother) Latina," Rodriguez said. "Growing up, I always felt this feeling that we didn’t belong. I was ashamed of my accent, my hair — and I think I carried that throughout my teenage years and my adulthood."

“When I was pregnant and became a mother," said Rodriguez, "I was very adamant to make sure que mi hijo creciera (that my son grow up) proud of his identity, and his culture and his traditions — that’s how the idea came out."

“I contacted many publishers, many said no and others said my idea didn’t make sense," Rodriguez said. "That was discouraging: those words are not new. We constantly have to prove ourselves in our own country."

Then Rodriguez's house burned down and she said she understood there's a short time to create change — which is when she reached out to her friend Ariana Stein about publishing bilingual children's books.

Giving back, inviting community to invest

“My grandparents saw me start out as an actress in Hollywood,” said Alba, a native of Pomona, California, whose paternal grandparents were the children of Mexican immigrants.

“I think they were proud that I always leaned on the community and broke stigmas and stereotypes that can be very oppressive in our culture," said the actor, known for her roles in movies such as "Sin City," "Fantastic Four" and "Spy Kids."

"I stand on their shoulders, I would not be here if they hadn’t worked as hard as they did," Alba said of her grandparents. “Giving back to the community is part of our business model."

Since its inception, Honest has teamed up with the nonprofit Baby2Baby to make donations locally in Los Angeles and internationally. "We have donated thousands of products to children living in poverty and experiencing homelessness,” said Alba, “we do what we can for the community.”

Lil' Libros co-founder Ariana Stein said that in 2021 she and Rodriguez decided they were going to invite the community to invest in their company.

“We wanted to include the community who has been helping us since Day One, and has supported us since the very beginning, that helped us build the brand and the mission," Stein said. "Now we have over 5,000 investors and the majority of them are first-time investors. We are not only publishing books, we’re teaching an entire generation that investing is important, that it’s necessary if we want to create generational wealth and pass that on to our children.”

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In the beginning, though, “we did not have investors. All we had were all of our savings, which we used to publish our first three books," Stein said. "What started as a passion project has become so much bigger than that; we have sold over 2.5 million books and we’re really proud of it. We self-published in the beginning, now we have over 75 titles, we’re publishing authors and illustrators, really making dreams come true.”

Alba, who has a daughter and a son, explained how she co-founded the Honest Company 15 years ago after her daughter Honor was born and she wanted cleaner and healthier baby products.

“I grew up with a lot of illnesses: I had chronic asthma and allergies, I was in the hospital a lot," Alba said. "We are transparent about the ingredients that go inside, we always think about safety, the planet and try to use natural ingredients — also wanting beautiful design: why can’t it be cute? We love color over here.”

“When I discovered that Ariana and Patty had created Lil’ Libros, I realized that it was the company I would have liked to have had when I became a mother,” Alba said. “These books highlight the value of bilingualism in a beautiful way, they celebrate our culture. I have wanted to collaborate with Lil’ Libros for years."

Journalists Ana María Rodríguez, Vickie Albanesi, Dalisa Robles and Marina Franco contributed to the story.

An earlier version of this story was first published in Noticias Telemundo.

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This article was originally published on NBCNews.com