A Fitting Memorial : Westminster Cemetery Among Many Adapting to Serve Ethnic Groups

Ornate dragons peer down from atop a 12-pillar pagoda at Westminster Memorial Park as a pair of lions--common animals in Asian myth and legend--stand guard over a ceremonial walkway lined with lotus blossoms and bamboo stalks.

For Stephen Conley, who is overseeing the construction of this elaborate cemetery addition designed specifically for Asian Americans, the essence is in the details.

“This has been a real learning process,” he said. “For example, in Vietnam, the graves face East, so in our early plans we had them facing East. Then we found out that they actually need to face the water, and here in Orange County, that’s south. So we changed the plans.”

This week, workers added the final touches and landscaping to the $700,000 project, called the Garden of Peaceful Eternity, in preparation for a dedication ceremony today.

The three-acre addition, which also features a bubbling pond and small bridges, will eventually accommodate more than 2,000 graves and has room to expand to a total of about 10,000, Conley said.

When the addition is completed, the 72-year-old park will join a growing number of mortuaries and cemeteries adapting to serve ethnic communities and immigrant groups.

“We’re trying to meet the needs of different cultures,” said Conley, who was the park’s president and general manager before it was bought by Houston-based Service Corp. International last year. Conley now serves as a consultant to Westminster Memorial and other cemeteries.

“And we need to change to meet the desires of a changing population,” he said. “I think we’re at the forefront of progressive cemetery development.”

Asian Americans and recent immigrants from Asian countries account for about 10% of an average 1,200 burials a year at the park, officials said, a percentage that is expected to increase as the immigrant population ages. Vietnamese expatriates in Orange County, for example, number about 150,000--the largest Vietnamese population outside of Vietnam.

Other cemeteries and mortuaries in Southern California have been changing in the same way for the past several years, although few are taking such elaborate steps as Westminster Memorial Park, where officials plan to one day construct a special area for Latinos.

“I see this as the next step in a trend that’s been going on for some time,” said Bill Conway, executive director of the Sacramento-based California Internment Assn. “Cemeteries have traditionally evolved to meet the needs and wants of any given group or community, such as many properties setting aside specific religious sections.”

Marketing to religious and ethnic groups is also, Conway said, simply good business.

“We are dealing with [the] bottom line . . . and the idea of providing service to those communities is foremost in the minds of cemeterians and funeral directors,” he said.

At Fairhaven Memorial Park in Santa Ana, 243 plots facing an Israeli holy city of Acre have been set aside for members of the Baha’i faith, a religion founded in the Middle East during the 19th century. Angel’s Lawn cemetery in Anaheim allows Muslims to be buried without a casket, following the belief that no Muslim should leave the world any richer or poorer than another.

The Peek Funeral Home in Westminster, which is associated with Westminster Memorial Park, built a special chapel for Southeast Asian Buddhist clients several years ago, featuring tables for temporary shrines and fans to help dissipate the thick smoke of burning incense.

The Garden of Peaceful Eternity, “is exactly the kind of development we need in this area,” said Westminster Councilman Tony Lam, a native of Vietnam who has served as a consultant on the project.

While other cemeteries in Orange County have set aside special areas for burials of Asian Americans, Lam said, Westminster Memorial Park’s is the most elaborate and carefully planned. “It’s very nicely designed and very respectful of Asian cultures,” he said.

Commonly called the Asian Garden, the addition to Westminster Memorial Park includes a wall with niches for about 600 cremation remains, Conley said, and about 80 larger family plots. Each of the 1,600 individual grave sites cost about $4,200--the same price as other sites in the cemetery, Conley said.

One section has been set aside for a planned $1-million monument honoring veterans and those who died during the Vietnam War. A nonprofit group is raising funds for the monument, titled the Vietnam Monument of Freedom.

The Asian Garden, which can be seen along Bolsa Avenue between Hoover Street and Beach Boulevard, has not escaped controversy, Conley said.

“There’s always people who don’t like change,” he said. “There’s been some resistance from people who feel we’re giving special treatment to a certain group.”

For more than seven decades, people interred in the 160-acre cemetery have been buried under rows of oak trees in large expanses of green grass. The only grave markings are simple plaques, as no upright headstones have been allowed.

But in Asian Garden area, customers will be able to choose upright headstones, although of a single, pre-approved design.

“We’ve had some negative response to that,” Conley said. “One [white] woman was upset, saying ‘Why do the [Asians] get to have upright headstones?’

“I told her that we’re not changing the other areas of the park, it’s just that we have to be culturally sensitive. There’s more focus now on trying to let different cultures have areas they can feel good about.”