Dia De los Muertos, celebrated this year from October 31-November 2nd, is a traditional Latin American celebration that honors those who have died by creating colorful altars where offerings such as bread, sugar skulls, figurines, candles, incense, yellow marigolds and photos are placed. Offerings are often very personal, such as photographs of the deceased and their favorite food items, beverages and flowers.
Many human service organizations in Santa Barbara face challenges when attempting to reach the Spanish-speaking/Latino population. Our Spanish speaking population, many of Mexican heritage, approach death and grieving in very different ways and it was important for Hospice of Santa Barbara to be sensitive and knowledgeable about these differences. In the early 2000s, we utilized Dia de Los Muertos as a unique entre into these communities.
Hospice of Santa Barbara reached out to the Parish Nurse community, which was critical to our linking with local Catholic churches. We were invited into some of the larger churches with significant populations of Latinos and Spanish speakers, such as Our Lady of Sorrows, Our Lady of Guadalupe and Saint Josephs in Carpinteria. Parish Nurses helped us communicate to the congregation about our free services for the dying and for the bereaved. We learned a lot in the process such as: many in this population grieve very privately, communicate in more subtle ways about death and often seek the guidance of the church. In many cases, it was not appropriate for these families to come to our offices, so we went to them. We built Dia de los Muertos altars alongside parishioners at their churches and more recently have created one of our own at our offices on the Riviera. We also had Spanish speaking staff on Spanish language radio and TV to communicate that our services were available in Spanish.
Over the years our relationship with Latinos/Spanish speakers has grown tremendously by being present in their communities and sharing our Hospice of Santa Barbara information in Spanish language publications and over the Spanish-speaking airways.
Today, I am proud to say that Hospice of Santa Barbara’s offers the full and extensive range of its free services in Spanish: free counseling for adults and children, Patient Care Services for patients and families in which a member is facing a life-threatening illness, and support groups and education to help Spanish-speaking adults, teens and children cope with the death of a loved one. Hospice of Santa Barbara now has 8 full-time Spanish-speaking employees across all our services. As a result, in 2018 we served 698 Latinos (mostly Spanish speaking), including 188 children.
Since our founding in 1974, our goal has been to serve all the children, teenagers and families of our community with free, compassionate and practical care. Over the years we have strived to make that an increasing reality among all people. We are already seeing the profound difference this is making in the lives of more and more families. Not surprisingly, we’ve also embraced many of the Latino cultural approaches to dying and grieving the death a loved for all our programs and services. We have learned a great deal in the process.
Hospice of Santa Barbara will be creating a Dia de los Muertos alter in our lobby starting this week. Those in our community, including staff, patients and clients are welcome to display a photograph or special memory item in honor of a loved one on our alter. For more information about any of our services visit www.hospiceofsantabarbara.org.
Be well,
David Selberg, CEO