The TOMB of the UNKNOWN ‘WETBACK’
The tears were still fresh on my cheeks as workers lowered my mother into her final resting place at Holy Sepulcher Cemetery in Orange. We had just said goodbye to Mami with a beautiful May funeral: mariachi, wails, and so many wreaths that the lawn surrounding her coffin looked like a Tournament of Roses float.
A backhoe was readied to fill in the grave as I turned to thank some of my cousins for attending. Then the Holy Sepulcher staffer helping my family that afternoon asked to speak with me privately.
“Juan can finally rest,” she said. “Do you want to see him?”
I excused myself from bewildered family members and followed the staffer. I had to. I couldn’t believe the miraculous news.
We walked a short distance and soon found the polished, black-granite gravestone of Juan Peña Diaz. An inset of Jesus surrounded by sheep was next to Juan’s dates of birth and death. Below that were the inscriptions “May You Have Found Your Peace and Justice” and “No Serás Olvidado.”
A social-justice message in English. “You won’t be forgotten” in Spanish. Universal and personal.
The staffer and I looked at Juan’s marker in silence. I had so many questions, but my grieving family waited.
“I’ll be back, Juan,” I said. “I promise.”
For more than 65 years, this Mexican immigrant had lain unloved here: killed by a police officer, erased by his brother, and ignored by relatives. But now the beautiful headstone suggested that Juan had finally received what the world never gave him while he was alive: dignity.
THE ORANGE GROVE
I first, Orange County’s alternative newspaper. Presidential candidate Donald Trump was mouthing what would become his draconian immigration policy, one in which family separations, deportations, and the demonization of undocumented immigrants would be the norm.
