Loved Ones Went Door-to-Door To Fund Funeral
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For his family, finding Jose Luis Romano’s body was just the first heart-wrenching challenge. Then came the chore of finding a way to ship it back to his parents, three children, and wife in Mexico to be buried.
Ortiz Funeral Home offered a special rate of $2,695 for the delivery to his home in Mexico, but that was more than any of them had.
Romano’s loved ones first looked to the Mexican Consulate for help. Officials there told them no money was available to send the body to Mexico. Next they went to three Mexican aid organizations in the city. All said they could not cover the costs.
Finally, his friends and family went restaurant to restaurant in Sunset Park, taking a collection to send the body back.
“People put in $5, $10, $15, whatever they had,” a roommate, Ana Maria Martinez, said in Spanish.
Two mourners videotaped the funeral Thursday night at the Ortiz Funeral Home.
“We wanted to show them that he received a proper funeral,” Ms. Martinez, a cotton-candy vendor, said.
Waving Mexican flags, the men – day laborers, dry cleaners, and roofers – wore black pants and shirts. Other men, still in work boots and jeans, trickled in as the ceremony got under way. The open casket was draped with a Mexican flag. As a Nortena band began to play tunes about dying far from Mexico, Romano’s cousin Amalia began to sob violently in the front row.
Romano, at 40, was older than nearly all of his mourners. Almost all of the attendees were from villages surrounding his in Puebla, Mexico, and many, like him, have families still there.
That type of funeral is routine at the branch of Ortiz Funeral Home on Fourth Avenue in heavily Mexican Sunset Park. Last week alone, four Mexicans were delivered direct to their native village to be buried, according to an employee at Ortiz, Teresa Pugo, who describes her responsibilities as receptionist and provider of information.
“With the Mexicans, there are a lot of young men,” Ms. Pugo said in Spanish. The challenge of living in America alone, with bottom-rung jobs and with families left behind, she said, contributed to the high death rates she sees. While the home delivers bodies to various Latin American countries, it is only in Mexico that they deliver them to the hometown.
