Objectives: This project was designed to give students hands-on experience with the local Mexican American community by focusing on the cemetery as an important cultural site. This project also provides students with an opportunity to do hands-on anthropological and ethnographic research.

1. Determine if Mexican American grave-decorating practices are different from white grave-decorating practices at City Cemetery in terms of both quality and quantity.

2. Determine if Mexican American grave-markers are different from white grave-markers by creating a typology of grave-markers.

(Originally data from the San Pedro Cemetery in San Marcos was also going to be collected and analyzed, but due to time constraints that part of the research had to be omitted)

Procedure

Procedure:

• To answer the research questions every decorated grave at City Cemetery had to be documented.

• Next, potential categories for a data sheet were brainstormed by using pre-existing categories from a similar project and student suggestions based on a preliminary trip to the cemetery.

• After many group discussions, the class determined what would be the most effective and efficient categories for the data sheet.

• Next, a data sheet was composed and then was test run at City Cemetery.  The results were discussed in class, and then the data sheet was redesigned and tested again, this time at both City Cemetery and San Pedro.

• The group next decided the best way to format the data sheet and it was then finalized. 

• Data was now ready to be collected, students went as partners to City Cemetery over the course of a few weeks, and filled out a data sheet for each decorated gravesite from their assigned section.

• Once all sections were completed the data sheets were copied and then divided among the class to code and enter into separate excel spreadsheets (formatted by Dr. Juarez), that were then compiled into a master database.

• The master database was cleaned up and formatted so data could be analyzed