Meet Sarah Chavez - Feminist Death Positive Activist
Sarah Chavez wants to change the way we think about death. The East LA native has dedicated her adult life to examining death and dying through an intersectional-feminist and inclusive lens, using her voice to examine the relationship between ritual, decolonization and death itself.
Sarah began her career as a historian and museum curator for the notoriously haunted Linda Vista Hospital. Many visitors of the hospital were interested in aspects of death so she created public programming where they could safely engage with the topic in an open forum. Since then, Sarah has become a defining voice within the industry. She is a founding member of “The Collective for Radical Death Studies”, a co-founder of feminist site “Death & the Maiden,” creator of the blog “Nourishing Death,” and co-host of the podcast “Death in the Afternoon.” She also serves as the executive director of the “Order of the Good Death,” a group of funeral industry professionals, academics, and artists exploring ways to prepare a death phobic culture for their inevitable mortality.
Despite working in the field, Sarah herself still has death anxiety. After a personal experience with what her and her colleagues call an “out of order death” or an unexpected, early ending of a life, she felt an overwhelming sense of fear and lack of support. Sarah turned to her culture’s rituals, learning and studying more about how her ancestors dealt with death. “Understanding and educating myself about what is going to happen, what my options are, and how I can support others has given me some sense of control,” she shared.
“People very much have the idea that Mexicans deal with death very well, that they aren’t afraid of it and it’s very much not that at all,” she explained, “it’s really that they haven’t had the privilege of denying or hiding from death like some Americans have, so they’ve created ways and rituals that have helped them through the immense loss and grief [they’ve experienced] as a nation of people.” In her culture, people are not left alone in their loss and grief, she describes it as very community driven. “I really want people to know that there is a different way. I want people to start imagining what our society and world would look like if we accompanied each other through this terrible pain and grief,” she professed.
Since the pandemic, Sarah has noticed that the conversation around death has shifted. “Our awareness of death and mortality has intensified greatly. I’ve had a lot of people wanting to make end of life plans now so they are prepared.” She wants to stress how important it is that we begin to support each other through things like this, even if it’s awkward and uncomfortable.
Quarantine has brought a few positives for Sarah, one being that she’ll be in Los Angeles for the Halloween season for the first time in several years. Usually this time of year, she is traveling all over Mexico for Día de Muertos doing field research. This year she is excited to check out some yard hunts, carve pumpkins, and watch scary movies. “I love horror films. For me they’ve been a form of therapy,” she shared, “the themes and things that are addressed in horror films are relatable.”
In addition, to Halloween festivities, Sarah will, of course, be celebrating the Day of the Dead. “For us that’s the first night of Día de Muertos so that’s the time when we begin to welcome the spirits home.” She’s been able to build an altar this year and is planning to do a lot of cooking to prepare offerings for her version of a family reunion. “Los Angeles is really the birthplace for Día de Muertos observances outside of the home in the United States and that was really brought to life thanks to Self Help Graphics in Boyle Heights.” The revival of the indigenous holiday was part of the Mexican-American reclamation of indigenous identity and an important social aspect of the Chicano Movement and being able to celebrate that in Los Angeles this year is incredibly special to her.
Follow Sarah on Twitter & Instagram or find out more about her via her website www.sarah-chavez.com. You can listen to her podcasts Bone and Sickle and Death in the Afternoon on Spotify and Apple or watch her on the YouTube series Ask A Mortician.
This post has been a collaboration between Strange Los Angeles and The Making Waves Project for 13 Days Of Strange – a socially distanced, Halloween photo series spotlighting spooky and strange Angelinos. Visit our homepage for more.
.Written by Brittany Rice
Photography by Robiee Ziegler
