Earpieces, Enchiladas, and Ideas

Whoever would have thought that I would be required to go to church or salsa dancing as part of my medical education? This year as part of the Rural Track Program, we have to conduct an interdisciplinary research project with students from nursing and public health. Seeing my ability to speak Spanish as an asset, I joined the group concerning obesity among Hispanics. This involves bi-weekly meetings to assess the needs of the community and our role in addressing this health issue. Since my group is working with a population of another culture, our professors desire that we experience that culture through various required outings including things such as community meetings with the Hispanic Coalition, a visit to the migrant worker clinic, and also options such as attending a church service in Spanish or going salsa dancing in Asheville (guess who’s dancing shoes are making a trip out on the floor in a few weeks?)
Tonight was our first meeting with the Hispanic Coalition of Northeast Tennessee. I went expecting a great catered Mexican meal and discussion about obesity, and I came away with ideas buzzing in my head as much as the simultaneous translation device in my ear. It was interesting to see the barriers that had to be crossed to facilitate the meeting between members of the Hispanic community, our medical professors, and the students. To ease the language, two wonderful translators were present, and all of the non-Spanish speakers wore earpieces that allowed us to hear the translator simultaneously translate Spanish into English. Since I knew both languages, it was extremely difficult to me to hear both languages at the same time and even more difficult when I tried to speak to the members of the Hispanic community while simultaneously hearing an interpretation of what I just said in my ear.
As the night progressed, our talk didn't center around obesity; rather, it was unfolding of the hardships and ubiquitous needs of the Hispanic population and of the misshapen paradigm we "Americans" have in regard to those who don't "speak our language." We talk about how "those people" come here and take away our jobs and live for free off our hard-earned tax dollars. Then tell me why is it that taxes get taken out of their paychecks, taxes they never see, just like ours? Tell me why the poorest city in Tennessee, Sneedville, and the one with the highest unenployment rate has migrant workers because those unemployed people would rather live off of our hard-earned tax dollars than take a job that a Hispanic person will? We talk about equal rights for all, yet we hand a scared teenage Guatemalan girl a phone to talk to her when she is giving birth instead of taking the money we just spent on remodeling the hospital cafeteria and hiring an actual human being to translate. I met a girl tonight who is in high school, at the top of her class, bilingual, and sweet as can be. However, instead of getting a scholarship to an Ivy League school, she'll have to cross the border and hopefully find work. We call ourselves a land of the free and a land where one can pursue the American Dream but only if one has had the privilege of being born "American." I know, you're thinking "but these are just a bunch of illegals that need to be shipped back where they came from." Tell that to my brother in Christ, Amado. Tell him he has to go back to a land where his children won't be educated because there simply aren't schools where he lives, his children will suffer disease from lack of medical care, and a land where he can't provide for his family. Didn't our ancestors all come to this land with the same dream Amado and his family came with: to have a better life?
So what can you do about this? You can sit on your comfy couch comparing your NCAA picks with the game outcomes and priding yourself for being an American citizen and not one of "those poor Hispanic people" and think there's nothing you can do. On the other hand, you can write your representatives and senators and urge the to support the Dream Act which allows non-US citizens the opportunity to get a college education provided they've been in the US school system for 15 years. You can urge them to support better working conditions for Hispanic laborers (don't even get me started on the working conditions of most Hispanic laborers), or you can even just reach out and get to know those in your Hispanic community through afterschool programs or church. You may not be a Thomas Jefferson or a Rosa Parks but you can make a difference. Isn't that what we're here for, to minister to the oppressed, the poor, the broken-hearted? It's just that some of them may not speak the same language as you.
The decision is yours.
I ask for your prayers that God works through the leaders of this community to bring better healthcare to the Hispanics of this community and that a sense of understanding and community prevails between both ethnic groups. I ask for your prayers that God continues to bring workers such as yourself to all parts of the world and the US to help those who are in need, whatever that need is, and that He allows us to realize that we are all His children no matter our place of birth or the language we speak.