Ramón Cruz Gómez is desperate. He feels like his head will explode. “I don’t know what to do. Some people tell me one thing, and others tell me something else,” he says.
He is in a bad situation. Ramón, who is of indigenous background from Chiapas, Mexico, lost his brother Eleazar Cruz Gómez, 19 years old, in a collision on July 15 in which six agricultural workers and a truck driver were killed in Westly, California. All were Mexican. His brother had been in California for less than a year.
Ramón does not trust anyone. He keeps to himself and seems frustrated, but he is faced with a difficult reality – picking up his brother’s body and sending it to Palenque, Chiapas, so that their parents can bury him.
However, the task is not that simple. Ramón has no money, and he has not earned any since the day of the accident. He decided to put collection jars in Latino supermarkets and to open a bank account to receive donations.
Ramón also joined forces with other family members of the victims, the sisters Eulalia and Adriana García and cousins Adán and Lucas Martínez. Between them, they have been washing cars for a few days in Lodi and Galt, local cities. They do not charge for the car wash, but they accept whatever people want to give.
The cost of dying in a foreign land and sending the body to Mexico or any other Latin American country is not trivial. It represents an unexpected cost of thousands of dollars.
The Mexican consulates have a program to help transport the bodies of people with low income, for which special prices and discounts have been negotiated with funeral homes, in exchange for giving them business.
Euclides del Moral Arbona, of the Mexican Consulate in Sacramento, said that the cost to transport the bodies runs between $3,000 and $5,000, depending on the funeral home.
The case is reviewed by the consulate, and the family members may receive partial help, he explained.
The spokesperson for the Mexican Consulate in Los Angeles, Mireya Magaña, reported that in 2005, 203 bodies were sent to Mexico, 299 in 2006, and 354 in 2007.
The Mexican Consulate in San Francisco confirmed that in 2005, 63 bodies were sent to Mexico, 42 in 2006, and 70 in 2007.
The Mexican Consulate in San Diego, through its spokesperson, Marcos A. Losada, reported that in 2005 it provided help for 95 bodies, 76 in 2006, and 157 in 2007. The consul in Sacramento did not wish to provide the same information, stating that it is confidential.
In 2006, the Mexican consulates in the United States sent 10,622 bodies to Mexico, 7 percent more than in 2005 and 11 percent more than in 2006. In 2006, the repatriation of bodies represented an expense of 4 million dollars, 3.4 million more than in 2005.
Carolina Díaz, manager of the Latino Americana funeral home in Los Angeles, one of six funeral homes with which the Mexican Consulate has commercial agreements for the transport of human remains, says that the special price from San Francisco, Sacramento and Fresno to Guadalajara or Mexcio City is $2,430. The normal price is $3,500. From Los Angeles, the price drops to $1,980.
Díaz explains that the prices include embalming, dressing and applying makeup for the deceased, four hours of viewing, paperwork for the burial permit, and the death certificate.
“The price includes a simple coffin lined with fabric,” she says.
The cost includes the flight on a freight plane. “That costs $596 dollars from Guadalajara and México.” She adds that on a commercial airline like Aeromexico, this can cost up to $900.
Of course, these prices do not include the transport from Mexico City or Guadalajara to the city of origin of the deceased. Díaz says that family members have to consider that they will need at least $1,000 more to pay a funeral home in Mexico, religious services and the cemetery plot.
We must not forget the before leaving, the coroner must also be paid. In Modesto, where the remains of the victims of the July 15 accident remain, the payment for 30 days is $75. But in other cities, the costs are much higher.
“In Santa Ana, the coroner charges $218, in Oakland $185, and in Los Angeles, $200,” says Díaz.
“The Mexican Consulate of Los Angeles supports families with an average of $1,563,” she says, but depending on the case, the family may also receive help from the state of California, even if they are undocumented.
“There is a program for crime victims that includes those that die in accidents, assaults, or shootings, whose family members receive $7,500 from the state for the funerals,” she says.
“Funeral homes like ours put the families in contact with social workers so that they can help with that kind of support,” she adds.
Díaz says that the cost of sending bodies to El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua add up to as much as $3,100, some $600 more than to Mexico.
One option that could be more economical for Latin American immigrants, although it is not popular, is cremation. “In Los Angeles, the basic service costs $750, but Latinos see it as the last resort,” Díaz says.
So, among feelings of guilt, anger, sadness and in some cases anger at God, sometimes in the middle of family disputes, the deceased immigrants’ families have to deal with the nightmare of the cost of dying in a foreign country and sending the body to their loved ones in Latin American countries.
