A Fitting Burial Place

Twice, sometimes three times a day, the Du sisters faithfully make their way to this quiet corner of Westminster Memorial Park, where a distinctive gold-and-orange-pillared pagoda stands sentinel.

Marked by bubbling ponds and immaculately landscaped grounds, the area where their mother, Xong Thi Nguyen, was buried in January is known as the Asian Garden of Peaceful Eternity.

The Dus chose the cemetery off Bolsa Avenue near Little Saigon so that in death, as in life, their mother would remain a part of the Vietnamese community she loved.

“I think she preferred being with Vietnamese people. She didn’t speak English very well and wasn’t comfortable communicating” with Americans, said daughter Penni Du, 23, of Santa Ana. “Here, she can still be among friends.”

Indeed, the separate burial ground dedicated in 1996 was designed to attract Asians, and Vietnamese in particular, said Gary Archibald, director of sales for Westminster Memorial Park.

During the past 20 years, the flood of Vietnamese immigrants into Southern California has affected not only the society in which they live, but also the community in which they die. Orange County is home to the largest community of Vietnamese emigres in the nation--an estimated 200,000.

Local funeral homes and cemeteries have had to adapt to a variety of cultural traditions and customs to attract this growing population: from setting aside a separate burial ground for Asians to making sure that grave plots face toward the sea so a person can be buried with their feet toward the ocean.

By actively courting the Vietnamese American community, Westminster Memorial Park has tripled its sales in the past two years, Archibald said. Part of the increase comes from sale of spaces in bulk to traditional Vietnamese “afterlife” associations, whose members contribute money every time a member dies to help cover funeral costs.

“There was a real need, a void here,” Archibald said. “It’s in our interest to serve the Vietnamese community.”

And increasingly, funeral homes and mortuaries across the state and nationwide have found a way to cater to a variety of ethnic and religious groups, said Kelly Smith, spokesman for the National Funeral Directors Assn.

“Historically, funeral homes have been very much tied into religious, ethnic and cultural traditions,” he said. That meant funeral homes being established to serve specific market niches. For example, an Irish Catholic funeral home in Boston would cater to its Irish Catholic neighborhood.

What’s different these days, particularly along the West Coast, are mortuaries and cemeteries that have diversified their services, Smith said.

“You’ll see funeral homes that now do days-long Hmong funerals, along with traditional Hispanic Catholic funerals,” he said.

Throughout the state, funeral homes have steadily adapted to changing demographics. For instance, in San Jose, which has a sizable Latino and Asian population, it’s meant creating separate burial grounds for different groups and providing extras, such as incense and burning pots, said Steven Mora, general manager of Oak Hill Funeral Homes and Memorial Park.

The Jewish community has its own cemetery on the premises. Meanwhile, Oak Hill dedicated a special area several years ago for its Asian customers, building an elaborate red pagoda on the site. its community outreach has been effective, he said.

“We’re doing three Vietnamese funerals, one Chinese and one Japanese funeral today,” Mora said on a recent day. “These are close-knit communities, and they want to be where everyone else is.”

Locally, Anaheim’s Melrose Abbey Funeral Home and Memorial Park has set aside an area of more than 700 plots for Muslim burials and an additional 2,000 spaces for Vietnamese Americans.

“We’ve found that we had to start learning from the beginning,” said General Manager Raphael Pazo. “But they’re our neighbors, so we need to change.”

The 2,000 plots were purchased over the past several years by the Vietnamese Mutual Assistance Assn. so that its members would feel they were part of a “Vietnamese village” even in death, said association founder Paul Long of Westminster.

Established in 1979, the group assists its members with funeral preparations and burial costs. The 6,000 members contribute a “condolence donation” of $1 each time a member passes away, he said. The annual fee is $12 with a one-time joining fee of $5.

Consider it the Asian form of death insurance. Afterlife societies have become more common because the average cost for a funeral runs between $8,000 and $10,000, Long said. The association can cut costs paid by the family by nearly 50%.

“Our members join so that when they pass away, they won’t be such a burden for their families,” he said. “It’s a way for us to help each other.”

But for Vietnamese, it’s also a way of maintaining ancient traditions of caring for the dead in a respectful manner. Vietnamese political prisoners have a similar group called Afterlife Mutual Assistance Foundation. Many of its members, mainly veterans, arrived in the United States older, less affluent and often in poor health.

“Our members are poor, and it’s very expensive to die here,” said Hung Chieu Doan, head of the group. “We used to have to go on the radio to beg for money [from the community] to bury a member. Now, we can provide for ourselves.”

The group recently purchased 100 plots, with plans to buy another 100 spaces, for Vietnamese veterans at Westminster’s Memorial Park, Doan said.

The growth of these groups, which has led to bulk sales of plots in local cemeteries, has had a noticeable impact on the way funeral homes market to the community.

“At first, we had a hard time penetrating the local Vietnamese community because there is a cultural stigma to buying a grave plot early,” said Archibald, with the Westminster cemetery. “They believe it means you wish bad luck to fall on someone.”

But by selling large sections of plots through the associations, who in turn pass on savings to members’ families when they pass away, the cemetery has sold almost all of the 2,000 plots currently available in the Asian Garden. There is capacity for 10,000 more plots in that area, and groundbreaking on a second section will start this summer, Archibald said.

During a recent afternoon, the smell of incense wafts through the air as an aura of serenity settles over the Westminster cemetery.

Fluttering windmills, colorful flower arrangements, and offerings of food crowd the bases of the upright granite headstones.

“It’s traditional for us to bury our dead among other Vietnamese people,” said Hoang Nguyen, 33, of Anaheim, kneeling to trim the grass, cut into the shape of a cross, at the grave of his son, Davidson. “But it’s also good because when Vietnamese come to visit, they can pay respects to my son.

“Some days I pass by and see incense [that others lit] all over the place. That makes me happy.”