2022 Theses Master's

Finding Uncle Cesar

Brady, Tyler

After Angel learned of his long-estranged Uncle Cesar’s death to COVID-19, he was unable to locate his body. I spoke with Angel in early 2022 to write an obituary for Cesar, and soon after discovered that he had been buried at Hart Island, New York’s potters field. This is the story of how a family dispute led Cesar to be buried on Hart Island, and how Angel’s lifelong search for him came to an end alongside a dirt road in America’s largest public cemetery. Angel’s experience on the island highlights the infrastructure mismanagement, lack of gravesite identification, and missing sense of memorialization that have created a negative atmosphere for visitors, while denying the interred a respectable place of burial.

Keywords: Hart Island, The COVID-19 Pandemic, Forgiveness and Family