Wings of a Bird

In death, a final trip home for Mexicans in U.S. - International Herald Tribune
Héctor Acevedo was 22, in the United States illegally and far from his mother when he died last month in a car accident outside of town just across the Arkansas River.
But mother and son were soon reunited. The tight-knit immigrant network rallied to repatriate the body, adding Acevedo to a procession of thousands of dead Mexicans making their way home each year.
...
In Mexican immigrant neighborhoods throughout the United States, collection boxes to help pay for the repatriation of a body are placed in grocery store windows. Employers also chip in. Acevedo's relatives, for example, were reimbursed for his burial by the restaurant where he had worked as a cook.
...
"For Mexicans, the bonds of the family unit are very strong," said the Reverend John Brown, who ministers to Hispanics at St. Joseph Catholic Church in Conway and who presided over a memorial service for Acevedo. "The bond is broken when they go to work in the United States. It is restored in death." ...