Last Rites, Tailored to Immigrant Customs

Funeral Homes Learn The Traditions of a Diversifying Clientele

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Preserving Traditions at Life's End
Just as immigrants have transformed the way of life in the Washington area, they have also influenced the way of death.

On a recent gray day, the earth next to the Islamic Garden at National Memorial Park near Falls Church was upturned for expansion. There, deceased Muslims are often propped on one shoulder inside their coffins so they face Mecca.

Nearby, workers placed stones in a creek bed bordering the Asian Garden. Originally, the creek was going to be drained and filled in -- until sales manager Scott Sagman, who consults feng shui masters about each change to the section, put a stop to it. He knew running water is considered good energy.

"If they cover that, not so good," Quang Duc, one of the cemetery's feng shui consultants, said as he gazed at the creek. "We need water, and we need trees."

Inside the cemetery's funeral home, closets hold the white shrouds, Egyptian spray perfume and carbolic soap Muslims use to wash and dress the dead. In one room, incense ash from Buddhist funerals has left marks on the brown carpet.

As immigrants have transformed the way of life in the Washington region and across the nation, they also have influenced the way of death, adding customs to long-standing traditions. In recent decades, many cemeteries and mortuaries -- whose directors are mostly white -- have adapted services for a diversifying clientele, designing special burial sections, providing rooms for Muslims and others to wash the deceased and allowing mourners to participate in cremation, as Hindus and Buddhists often request.

"This is what people want: to observe their customs," said Robert M. Fells of the International Cemetery and Funeral Association. "If you say, on the one hand, 'What are you talking about?' or worse, 'We don't do that,' you're not serving the needs of the public. . . . That's not acceptable anymore."

Service Corp. International, which operates nearly 1,100 funeral homes nationally and owns National Memorial Park, recast 24 homes last year in Los Angeles, Chicago and the Rio Grande Valley in Texas to cater to Hispanics. Heeding the advice of Latino focus groups, the funeral homes now offer 24-hour viewings and coffins bearing the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe.

Because Islamic tradition dictates that the washing be done by members of the same sex, National Memorial Park's funeral home manager, Rick Caillier, makes sure women are working on days female Muslims are washed in case an employee has to enter the prep room. He tries to hold Buddhist services in the funeral room farthest from the crematory so mourners have time to finish chanting while processing to the cremation.

In the basement of Fairfax Memorial Funeral Home, near the crosses for Christian services, a table holds bells, incense, a tea set and other necessities for Buddhist funerals. Michael H. Doherty, vice president of the family-owned business, said he is considering building a second chapel with removable pews so mourners can sit on the floor during funerals, as Hindus and Buddhists sometimes request.

For much of the past century, urban ethnic neighborhoods often had mortuaries that catered to their communities, said Gary Laderman, an Emory University associate professor of religion who wrote a book on U.S. funeral homes. But as new immigrant groups have arrived and spread out, traditional funeral homes have become more all-purpose, he said.

Funeral and cemetery directors say such adaptations come with the territory in a service-oriented business.

Huyen Le, a Fairfax resident and Vietnamese Buddhist, recalls planning funerals for her mother- and father-in-law in the 1990s. No funeral home she contacted knew anything about Buddhist services, she said.