By Jan Peña-Davis –

Located on the corners of Armitage and Kimball Avenues, the Caribe Funeral Home has served the mainly Spanish-speaking community of Humboldt Park since 1965. It is believed to be the first Latino-owned funeral home in the state of Illinois.

Most of Rebecca Bishop’s clients at the funeral home are Puerto Rican, Mexican and some from Central America. Caribe serves an almost exclusive Hispanic clientele.

Bishop,43, herself wears many hats. As a licensed public health official, her primary duties are geared more towards social work, assisting families with the arrangements and counseling families through the grief process.

But exceptions are made when it comes to babies, as a licensed embalmer, she works with them.

“Because of a personal experience I had with miscarriages and not being able to acknowledge my baby’s brief life, I personally tend to work with the babies,” she says.

She quiets.

“Laws have changed. Before, people couldn’t have private funerals for short-term babies, now they can,” Bishop says. “I’ve seen how babies were treated, like meat and I personally decided to help families delicately celebrate the brief lives. It helps.”

Maria Roman, a close family friend, has known Bishop since they were girls.

“She seems like a tough cookie, but she has a BIG heart of gold,  wonderful smile and helps you even before you ask. She’s a beautiful person- both inside and out,” Roman says.

Owned by her white Puerto Rican mother and an African-American father, the facility is now managed by Bishop, one of their three daughters. Becky, as she’s called by family and friends, is a ‘Blatina’, half Hispanic and half black. At times, acceptance in her own community has been challenging.

“Most Latinos assume that I’m black,” she says. “I’ve even had people ask me how I learned Spanish since I speak it so well.”

She chuckles.

“And since working in the family business with my mom as my boss, the Latinos who come in ALWAYS assume that the ‘whiter looking’ secretary is the daughter because she looks more Hispanic,” she explains.

The well-traveled, multi-lingual funeral director admits having gotten used to the strange looks and hateful comments by people in this country, but concedes to being particularly offended by Hispanics.

“(They) look down on me because I’m half black; yet these people are full blooded Hispanics whose skin is darker than mine with ‘typical’ black features,” she muses.

She recounts that some Latinos have commented that it’s good she’s ‘mixed’ because she may have come out too dark.

But these feelings are not limited to strangers. Within her own family, Bishop admits that her first cousins, with light eyes or lighter skin, were considered more attractive.

Bishop shares that her mother has never gotten over her decision to wear her natural hair cropped short. “In her mind, it should be longer and straightened,” she shares.

Even though she admits to being very young and when she noticed how differently she and her siblings were treated from the rest of the family, her personal choices continue to shock many people.

Her sister, Virginia “Ginni” Bishop, is a physician on the staff of Northwestern Memorial Hospital. “We’re tough, you knock us down, we get back up and my little sister Becky is like the family rock,” Ginni says.

Becky’s husband is Italian and her children look white.

She rolls her eyes as she recounts how people have queried “if she was babysitting,” and she responded “for the rest of my life.”

She admits that the ignorance is breathtaking especially when both black and Hispanics feel that to be white or at least lighter is preferable.

She smiles sadly.

“I’ve had complete strangers approach the stroller to see my baby and immediately say that my baby must look like the father. These people can’t see past the difference in color,” she says.

But Becky’s children look exactly like her and her immediate family-except for skin and hair.

“Or one woman suggested that I never let my baby sleep on his back because gravity will pull his nose down and make it wide and flat,” she explains.

She shakes her head in disbelief as she reflects on race and identity in the United States.

“We still have a ways to go,” she says.