Funeral directors in U.S. adjust to immigrants' funeral rites By DANIEL CONNOLLY A tipsheet from the National Funeral Directors Association tells its members to be prepared for animal sacrifices if they're asked to handle a funeral for Hmong immigrants. ’The visitation can go on for three or four days," reads the tipsheet. ’The spirit is believed to remain in the body until burial, and mourners talk to the body and offer animal sacrifices to nourish it." How to best serve immigrant populations comes up frequently at morticians' conventions, so the funeral directors' group developed a series of tipsheets to advise members suddenly confronted with unfamiliar customs. ’Virtually every year, we'll have a topic on that because the immigrant population is spreading across the country," said Robert Vandenbergh of Caul Funeral Homes in suburban Detroit. Tips on Muslim funerals tell funeral directors to expect family members to perform ritual cleansings of the body. Funeral directors say they have found on their own that Mexicans want to be involved in pre-burial rites as much as possible. ’A lot of times they are interested in taking the body back to the house and having a 24-hour visitation at the home," said Luke Chalmers, funeral director at Rollins Funeral Home in Rogers. ’They're very involved, they want to get the casket out of the coach, they want to pass out the memorial folders. They want to help the funeral directors in any way they can." Marcelino Luna, a Mexican deacon who heads Hispanic ministries for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Little Rock, says family and friends participate actively in the burial itself. ’They throw a handful of dirt on the casket before they bury it," he said. ’They will not leave the graveyard until the body is buried." Rev. John Kerr, a Catholic priest who has served Hispanic congregations in the small town of De Queen and in Little Rock, says Hispanics mourn differently than white Americans. ’There's a lot of crying, there's a lot of fainting," he said. ’It's very emotional. Whereas we as Anglos usually hold it inside and we do our mourning alone at the homes and all of that."

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