Recently, my family traveled to Mexico City and my parents relied on my Spanish to help us get around. I’ll never forget when I had to bargain in Spanish with a storeclerk. By engaging in everyday activities and conversations in Spanish, I could connect with the clerk and the Mexican culture more intimately. It felt gratifying and empowering to be able to use the Spanish I’d been learning in school in such an authentic way. Weeks later, I was talking to my school’s custodian in Spanish when the conversation shifted to her experiences getting medical care. As she talked about her struggles in accessing healthcare, I began to think about these grassroots challenges in my community. With an interest in medicine, I began thinking more about how I could combine my love for Spanish and a bigger societal problem of healthcare equity.
That summer, I began volunteering with El Centro Hispano, helping at their health fairs by taking patients’ blood pressure and distributing various hygiene items. I tried stepping out of my comfort zone too – interviewing Latinos, in Spanish, about their experiences receiving healthcare, and through their accounts, I identified four problems limiting their accessibility: documentation, money, language, and lack of information.
I learned that while there are a multitude of factors limiting Latinos’ access to healthcare, the language barrier and lack of information are the root causes behind the issue, and therefore, these are the two areas in which I want to have the biggest impact. This semester, I will be dedicating my independent study to furthering my research on the issue of healthcare equity in the Latino community. I plan on speaking and collaborating with many local organizations and individuals to gain a deeper understanding of the topic. While I haven’t decided what my final project will be, I am planning to spend the next few months developing a digital and in person space where I provide information, in Spanish, about local, cheaper healthcare options that serve the Latino community. Ultimately, I hope to offer some help to members of the Latino population so that they can take advantage of the medical resources available to them. Although I can’t reach most Latinos, I aspire to positively impact the community, even if it is one family at a time.
