Roadside Memorials

Abstract

Roadside memorials or descansos have diffused from a Mexican/Southwestern regional Hispanic hearth to increasingly draw the attention of motorists and public officials throughout the United States. In the current context, the authors' attention is on privately and spontaneously erected memorials placed at the sites of fatal events. Typically these result from automobile accidents, though not exclusively. The intent of the present article is three-fold: 1) to identify meaning and significance in the precise placement of contemporary markers; 2) to directly investigate the motivation and purposes of memorial/descanso builders; and 3) to survey issues of traffic safety, highway maintenance, landscape or visual blight, and church/state relations arising from the placement and maintenance of these roadside memorials.