SACRAMENTO, Calif. — When Martha Castro's uncle died of cancer last March, her family had limited options to put him to rest.
Statewide closures prompted by the coronavirus pandemic forced funeral homes throughout the state to temporarily halt burials and church services early on in the pandemic.
The indefinite delays meant a casket burial for her uncle was off the table.
"Our thought was, 'Of course there would be a casket burial,' but because the pandemic had just hit it was: No Mass, no services, not even burial at that particular point," Castro said. "Latinos in general — we're used to laying our loved ones to rest from one day to the next."
Instead, to avoid further delays, her family chose to have his remains cremated.
California's Latino families, like others worldwide, had to re-imagine the funerals of their loved ones amid the coronavirus pandemic, experiencing delays due to widespread death, limits on the number of people who could attend and confusion over which burial practices were allowed.
Some Catholic families used to choosing burial over cremation experienced yet another change.
In 2020, cremations among Latino Californians outpaced burials, according to a Sacramento Bee analysis of data from the California Department of Public Health. Records available since 2014 had previously shown the opposite.
"It wasn't just our family that had to make that decision, there are other families that had to change what they were originally going to do at that time also," Castro said.
One report released last year by the National Funeral Directors Association showed "the majority of NFDA-member funeral homes (53.2%) have stated that the cremation rate at their firm has increased since the COVID-19 crisis began."
Of the Latino Californians who died last year, about 47.8% were buried, a 1.8% decline from 2019, and 50.5% were cremated, a 3% increase from 2019.
While the Roman Catholic Church lifted its ban on cremations in 1963, burials are still preferred. Many Latino families have opted to have the bodies of deceased members buried, a practice long a part of Christian tradition.
Bob Achermann, executive director for the California Funeral Directors Association, said cremation can be a common choice for many families due to its lower costs compared to casket burials. In situations where several members of the family died from COVID-19, however, he said younger people might not have the resources to choose more expensive burial options.
"The Hispanic community was hit disproportionately," he said. "Never thinking that would happen, I'm sure that cremation was an option that was chosen."
Janine Rivera's 85-year-old grandmother died of natural causes last April. Because of COVID-19 safeguards at hospitals, family members were not allowed in her room. She died in the hospital while a nurse held her hand.
At the time, Rivera hoped her grandmother's funeral would be a dayslong event with dozens of family members and friends honoring the life she lived. But only 10 people were able to attend her funeral service in person, and it lasted for a couple of hours.
The day of the service, Rivera, of Cathedral City, remembers leaving work early to attend the funeral service over Zoom, a videoconferencing platform. She watched the service with her girlfriend at home, still dressed in her work attire.
Rivera has normalized taking a course or talking to friends over Zoom amid the pandemic, "but having to watch your grandma go into the ground is not something that I ever thought would happen," she said.
"I know that she's gone, but, a part of me wasn't able to just really say goodbye."
On Christmas Eve of last year, Janet Bernabe took her father to an emergency room in Moreno Valley after his COVID-19 symptoms worsened and he couldn't catch his breath.
It was the last time she saw him alive.
"I was the last person to speak to him," said Bernabe, 37. "If that was going to be the last time I saw him, I would have said more."
Even though her family had reserved a plot for him prior to his death, Bernabe said she still had to wait two weeks for the funeral home to pick up her father's body from the hospital. Bernabe said she and her sister "felt this anguish" knowing his body was in the hospital.
"There's a lot of families that are going through the same heartbreak," she said.
Within a month of his death, Bernabe's family buried him in Riverside.
Castro works as a family services adviser at the St. Mary Cemetery & Funeral Center in south Sacramento, which is operated by the Catholic Funeral & Cemetery Services of the Diocese of Sacramento and serves a large Latino and Asian population.
Castro said it was difficult to not be able to deliver the funeral services families envisioned for their loved ones due to statewide COVID-19 restrictions, which required a limited number of guests.
Jerry Del Core, president and CEO of Catholic Funeral & Cemetery Services of the Diocese of Sacramento, said demand for their services was "unprecedented" amid the pandemic, particularly between January and February of this year.
"Some families would tell you they felt cheated," he said. "A lot of families would come to us and would say, "Can you make an exception?" And the answer is you can't because if you do, for one, you have to open it for everybody."
Del Core said cremation rates at St. Mary Cemetery & Funeral Center don't quite match statewide numbers, but cremation rates at the funeral center did increase since July 2020.
Between July 1, 2019 and June 30, 2020, cremation rates at the funeral center were at 37.7%. So far, during this fiscal year, cremation rates are at 41.5%.
More than a year after her uncle's death, Castro was recently able to gather with relatives at a funeral service honoring her uncle's life. Castro said her family could have easily invited up to 400 people to attend his funeral service, but due to current COVID-19 limitations about 40 people attended.
Rivera attended her grandmother's church service this month with 30 of her relatives. During a family event afterward, Rivera's relatives presented hand-made pillows they created using fabric from her grandmother's night gowns and old coats. It was the first time her family was able to meet in person to share stories of her grandmother, drink tequila and sing boleros together in remembrance.
For Rivera's family, casket burials for loved ones have been a long-standing tradition in her family.
"I don't think we've ever had anyone in our family be cremated," Rivera said. "I don't think that was ever even an option."
