(NEW YORK) – New York City’s Hart Island, the burial site of more than 1 million people who were unclaimed, unidentified or could not be buried elsewhere, is opens to visitors after decades of being shrouded in mystery and stigma.
For Elsie Soto, whose father died of complications from AIDS in the 1990s, public tours of the island indicate a step in the right direction toward shedding light on the stories of marginalized groups in the New York City.
His father, Norberto, is one of the thousands of AIDS patients buried on Hart Island.
Not only is the island home to the largest pothole field in the US, it’s also believed to be the largest AIDS burial site, according to the New York Parks Department.
Soto says she was just 10 years old when her family “had no choice” but to bury Norberto on Hart Island.
“During that time, my mom already had six kids. It wasn’t like we had any money saved up, especially for a funeral that can be, at that time, $5,000 or $6,000,” Soto told ABC News.
He continued: “We were contacting several funeral homes, and unfortunately the second they heard that my father died of complications from HIV-AIDS, they were like, ‘Do we have to charge more for the embalming process or do we have to bring a additional protective equipment”.
Hart Island has been a public burial site since 1869, and families whose loved ones are confirmed to be buried there can schedule a visit to the grave with a Parks Department escort.
Many of those buried on Hart Island come from marginalized groups, according to urban park ranger Kasha Pazdar, who will lead the bimonthly tours.
It’s unclear exactly how many people who contracted AIDS are buried on the island due to a lack of records, according to Pazdar, but the city estimates it’s in the thousands.
The AIDS epidemic, in particular, disproportionately affected the already stigmatized LGBTQ community, as well as intravenous drug users, according to the CDC.
The island is also the burial ground of destitute Civil War veterans, people who died from COVID-19, impoverished and homeless people.
“You have a lot of people who are not being accepted, who are not being claimed by their families at the time of their death,” Pazdar said.
The shame surrounding HIV-AIDS has long led to misinformation and inadequate treatment about the disease, according to the CDC.
Soto recalled the misinformation that pierced his own understanding of his father’s illness when he was young: “I remember one time my father hugged me, and it was during the summer, and I was sweating. And my mom pulled me aside and wiped me with alcohol swabs.”
In death, as in life, some people who were diagnosed with AIDS and buried on Hart Island faced discrimination.
In 1983, the New York State Funeral Directors Association urged its members not to embalm the bodies of those who died of AIDS-related causes, making it difficult for families to find a funeral home to accept them for a private funeral.
The New York City Commission on Human Rights’ AIDS Discrimination Unit was established that same year to combat this inequality, according to an interview with unit officials in the book “AIDS: Cultural Analysis / Cultural Activism.”
“We sued several funeral homes for discrimination, hoping to use it as an educational tool for the funeral industry, and we actually ended up talking to 200 funeral directors about the issue,” said the head of the Katy Taylor commission in the book.
However, not all people who contracted AIDS were denied service or sent to be buried on Hart Island. In New York City, various institutions and individuals, such as Redden’s Funeral Home and the Church of St. Francis Xavier, offered services to AIDS patients, while others refused.
The stigma against AIDS patients can also be seen in the way some of those who died of AIDS-related illnesses were buried on Hart Island.
At the southernmost tip of New York City’s Hart Island is the grave site of dozens of unidentified AIDS patients who were buried in individual graves away from other burials in the 1980s, at the point height of panic over the disease.
They were buried deeper than the others, 14 feet deep, “which from what we understand is the deepest that the backhoe, the machinery that was being used, was the deepest the backhoe could dig,” Pazdar said .
The choice to bury the individuals furthest from the other bodies “was out of fear of contagion, which is not based on any scientific basis and was not based on a scientific basis at the time,” Pazdar added.
NYC Parks announced the start of free public tours of Hart Island, in part to address these historical stigmas and share the story of those buried there.
“The problem with Hart Island is that it wasn’t accessible for so long,” said Melinda Hunt, who directs the Hart Island project. The project of a few years documents and makes known this history. “It didn’t really function as a cemetery. It functioned as a place where people disappeared.”
He continued: “It really made people feel like they were being discarded.”
Hunt has played a major role in advocating for city officials to expand access to the cemetery.
As visitors board the ferry and land on the island’s shores on the limited tours available, he hopes they will feel more connected to the communities from which those buried there come.
“The purpose of cemeteries is to repair holes in the social fabric,” he said.
Norberto was a proud Puerto Rican man, according to Soto, who taught his daughter to stand up for what is right.
One of the final letters she sent the younger Soto inspired her to pursue public health advocacy, where she now says she fights to make sure that “communities like ours, Latino communities, black communities not be ignored.”
She continued: “Just because he’s buried on Hart Island, just because he died of complications from HIV-AIDS, it doesn’t make him any less of a father, it doesn’t make me love him any less.”
Tours will not yet visit the southern part of the island due to the demolition of several structures that has limited their ability to do so, according to Pazdar.
However, NYC Parks told ABC News that it has proposed a master plan for the island to potentially build a memorial space, a visitor center and develop new visitor practices.
“When we are able to face and look at our past and take a look at Hart Island, we can celebrate all those who are buried there and the lives that they lived,” Pazdar said.
They encourage visitors to “look to the future and see what Hart Island can become because it’s up to all of us, the whole city to decide what happens next for Hart Island.”
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