Does it really make sense for it to have the name of Evergreen Cemetery?
One of the phases in life is passing away, and some people have chosen to be buried in the Evergreen Cemetery. This Cemetery has been around for over one hundred years, so many years that it doesn’t receive good care anymore.
During most of the year, it doesn’t make sense for it to be called Evergreen because it’s not green at all, it is mostly dry and cracked dirt. During this time (Spring) the Evergreen may seem really green. In reality, it’s a lost of green wild branch and it is not even close to being grass. After Spring, the branch will mostly dry up and the cemetery will once again be brown and the cycle will keep on repeating over and over.
Many people like visitor Ara Arazian don’t want this to keep on happening. Arazion said, “…it wasn’t like this eight years ago… it was green it was green it was greener, now it’s Everdirt.” He also said, that if he had the chance, he would go to the main office and start yelling at them and expect the Evergreen to be perfect and to be kept green.
In addition, visitor A. Matsumoto had a similar perspective as Arazion. Matsumoto said “I’ve always thought of like getting a group to volunteer but I mean yeah most of us are working and we just don’t do it…”
Both quotes can help demonstrate that people do care if the Evergreen has good care or not and that they really want changes made to the cemetery.
An explanation for the Evergreen not having good care can be because there’s not a lot of water around. The Evergreen is divided into twelve sections to make it easier for people to find certain tombs. It is really hard to find faucets on each section because each faucet is approximately 90 ft. apart. There can also be sprinklers found between each faucet’s distance but they’re not in function anymore.
Another reason why this might be happening is for economic reason. Matsumoto said that since the Evergreen is an old cemetery, it doesn’t receive a lot of money like Rose Hills memorial park. Even though this is true, the Evergreen can still receive funds from organizations and people, and can have fundraisers to be able to take care of the cemetery.
Caretaker Ricardo Garcia said that there are about eight caretakers that work from 7:30am to 4:30pm from Monday through Sunday. This shows that there are not a lot of caretakerers to be able to take care of it.
One of the visitors interviewed said, “… It’s definitely gone down you know in the last twenty years or so, well I just came from Whittier [Rose Hills Memorial Park & Mortuary] and that cemetery is gorgeous compared to this one, the grass is green…”
Many different people have strong opinions of the Evergreen not receiving good care, but this doesn’t only affect them, in fact it affects many people including people from our school, Animo Jefferson Charter Middle School.
Eighth grader Jasmin Ramirez said, “Make it more beautiful instead of having branches there.” She also said, “ It kind of looks beautiful, but when it turns brown It’ll look ugly.”
Seventh grader Kevin Gomez said that he would want better grass and more lights to be used at night.
When the people interviewed were asked a question around the line “What would you like to see as a change in the cemetery?” the majority of them answered that they would like the cemetery to be green, and have grass. Individuals also added on that they want to see better maintenance, security, for it to be watered more often, and directions to help guide the people were to find certain tombs. They would also like equality on every tomb. Several people said that they didn’t liked the idea of only the area of the entrance tombs to receive good care and looke nice, they wanted the entire cemetery too look like that.
This cemetery not only holds the bodies of family members but also of unknown pople. Therefore, the cemetery has a greater responsibility to look nice.
Eighth grader
Eighth grader
