Part of the Muerte en El Ranchito: An Immigrant Experience Blog Series
My parents taught me the beauty of death. In stories, they talk about how death can make us mourn, but it also makes us celebrate life. We can love our life and our home, and yet, we can grieve for our homeland. Death separates and changes us, but reminds us of our lives together. Sadness and love lock together and keep us - freezes us- locked. Death forces us to stop.
I was taught that death connects us to one another.
My father tells me stories about his life in Durango, Mexico. I feel his love for his home, but I sense his pain. In Durango, he knew who he was. As an older son of a large family, it was his duty to till the land and provide for his siblings and for his neighbors. My father’s life was simple; he understood that if he were good man and helped, he would have a good life. In death, community would remember he had helped and come together to give him a good death.
He often tells me: “I prayed for him [a neighbor] when he died. When it is my time, someone will pray for me.” In death, community is supposed to come together. Through stories, my father retells his experiences with death as a young man.
[Translation]
“All the people from the rancho come together [especially] if [the deceased] didn’t have any family members. [In the rancho] we are all poor and don’t have anything really, so families [and neighbors] came together.
One man would say ‘I have a wooden board’ and another may say ‘I have another’ to make the coffin to bury [the elder].
Another man may take his measurements [and measure] how long he is and how wide.
‘I will make a coffin of x size’
Another man will be like ‘I have nails and the tools’- el serrucho [the saw]- we did everything with el serrucho.
Y entre todos se juntaban.
And everyone got together to make the coffin for the deceased - all from wooden boards.”
I can see my father’s expression as he replays the scenes in his head. He talks about these men as if he were still with them - someone handing him wood - or sending him to tell family members and neighbors what has happened. Every action, decision, and material- every wooden board- brought together neighbors and family. Neighbors and family, now synonymous, were expected to step in and support those in grief. His story reminds me that when grief wants us to freeze in our sadness, community mobilizes us.
More than this, participation and community mobilization offers comfort in the face of death. Those who came together in my father’s ranchito did so not just to ease the pain of their neighbor, but in knowing that when the time came, they too would be taken care of by their community. Death was a part of the rhythm of their ranchito; they came together just as they would for dinner. This reciprocity shaped their understanding of death. The man my father described may have lived alone, but he did not die alone.
What is there to expect when dying in the United States? Who will build the coffin for my father here?
When my father left his home and came to the US, he left his community, his support, and his duties. His new home does not allow him to participate in death in the way that he has understood it. Although he brings his way of dying with him, there is no place for it here.
Death in the United States only brings expenses and grief.
Like other immigrants, my father has had to carve out new ways of living and dying. Although he can no longer participate with his ranchito when someone passes away, he supports the best way he can with the resources available to him. In his ranchito, the resources were people and wooden boards; here, he can only send money and support the decisions that are being made. Although hugs feel better in-person, he sends his love via FaceTimes and audio messages.
His understanding of death has been complicated, because reciprocity is difficult to create in a country that does not value your life. However, what he does know and teaches his family is that death is a shared experience.
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Alondra Virrey
Alondra (Nona) Virrey (she/her/ella) is exploring the Latinx way of dying in the United States. She centers Mexican communities and how they create a new home and find ways to integrate and transform their culture, including how immigration status, grief, community, gender roles, and a good death, frame their lives. Through her studies and background (MLIS), she looks for the intersection of Latinx experiences in death, migration, and archives - with the hopes of creating conversation and then action for change.
Contact: nvirrey27@gmail.com
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