Signs of Remembrance

Some of the staff at the Washington School for the Deaf in Vancouver, Wash., shifted uncomfortably in their chairs. "The students might become upset," a colleague said. "I don't think we should do it." I had just proposed that our middle school celebrate Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, as a component of our semester unit called "The Cycle of Life." Día de los Muertos is a Mexican and Mexican American celebration (with roots in the Aztec culture), during which families spend November 2nd celebrating and honoring the lives of loved ones who have passed on.

Majority culture in the United States discourages conversations on death and grief -- subjects that make many people uncomfortable. For deaf and hard-of-hearing students, bereavement can be particularly troublesome. Ninety percent of deaf children are born to hearing parents, and often parents learn only basic signs in American Sign Language (asl). Communication at home frequently is labored, and, when a friend or family member dies, a deaf or hard-of-hearing child may misunderstand or become confused by an incomplete explanation of what is happening around her.

Washington School for the Deaf provides an environment rich in language, and students receive information constantly through asl. Most students, however, come to us from all over the state and actually reside at the school during the week. This situation proves especially challenging when someone in a student's family has died. Students often feel disconnected and alienated from the events in their family, and they long to be home.

A Celebration
Even though they recognized the challenges that deaf and hard-of-hearing children encounter when someone dies, my colleagues were still concerned about celebrating the Day of the Dead. The faculty decided to invite a counselor from a local youth bereavement support group to help us develop a plan. In the end, she encouraged the faculty to celebrate Día de los Muertos with students and assured us that exploring grief would actually be helpful to our wards.

To prepare for the November holiday, each person in the middle school wrote an epitaph to memorialize someone he or she knew who had passed away. We later bound these testimonials into Memory Books so that students could read them in subsequent years. Every classroom made a traditional ofrenda, a table decorated with photographs, poems and stories. Perhaps the most striking elements are the calacas scenes, shadow boxes in which clay skeleton figures represent the deceased engaged in favorite activities.

Over the years, Vannote has obtained federal and state grants, as well as local funding, to help pay for teacher training and educational and social projects to help refugee children succeed. She and Dvorachek regularly recruit volunteers for esl classrooms from local colleges and universities. They invite refugee parents to talk to teachers about their cultures and their war experiences.

The two educators have encouraged a district-wide joining of forces with the parks and recreation department, public libraries, YMCA and nearby children's museum, establishing or promoting programs that will appeal to refugee families. They work closely with the well-staffed resettlement agency, Lutheran Social Services, which recently opened the Center for New Americans and hired a counselor to work with refugee students and their teachers.

Students also read books with historical information about Día de los Muertos, narratives about death, and ghost stories. One class created ghost stories in asl and then made videos of them.

By November 2, both students and faculty were eager to celebrate the Day of the Dead. We placed all of the ofrendas in one room, and a group of students brought fresh pan de los muertos (bread of the dead). As we paraded through the school, gathering students and staff along the way, a student announced the official celebration by blowing a conch shell -- the ancient instrument whose sound is said to call out the spirits of the dead.

As we gathered in the "ofrenda room" to feast on pan de los muertos, individual students volunteered to talk about the person whom they were memorializing. Some cried. Others left the room, then returned when they felt composed. All of the students, however, appreciated the experience and said that they wanted to make Día de los Muertos an annual celebration.

Learning about and celebrating the Day of the Dead was educational and fun, but something else occurred on a deeper level. We, the individual members of the middle school, became a community. We shed tears, shared laughter, told stories. We hugged. We talked about issues we found confusing or uncomfortable. We learned that not all our questions could be answered, but that we all share similar thoughts and feelings.

Shortly after we celebrated Día de los Muertos, a new student joined our school. An ofrenda still stood in my room. She took a long look at the decorated table and then asked me what it meant. The next day she brought a photograph and set it on the ofrenda. "This is my grandmother," she told the class. And then she began to tell us memories of the happy times they had shared.