On February 9Th, I Attended An Event Where Dr. Renee Navarro

Growing up with parents who are immigrants can present many obstacles for the children of those immigrants. There are many problems people face that we do not even realize. Things happen behind closed doors that we might not even be aware of. Writers Sandra Cisneros and Amy Tan help us become aware of these problems. Both of these authors express those hardships in their stories about growing up with foreign parents. Although their most apparent hardships are about different struggles, both of their stories have a similar underlying theme.

Living in the United States wasn’t any easier for my dad. Having no parents meant he had no permanent home. He lived with his sponsors that helped him come to the United States. My dad knew very little english and was enrolled into high school. There he and many Hmongs were discriminated by other students. After graduating High School my dad received his first job where he worked for minimum wage. Even though having a job my dad still had no permanent home. He moved in with his uncles that treated them poorly. My dad had to sleep in an attic that had a broken window in the harsh Minnesota winter. That night it was twenty below zero and my dad had three thick blankets on still struggling to stay warm. After thirty long years our family has came a long ways. Today we are fulfilling the American dream in the natural state of Arkansas.

In a perfect world, race, ethnicity and culture would have no negative effect on the medical care we receive, yet problems do arise and it affects the quality of care the patient receives. Language barrier, poor socioeconomic status, and poor health literacy also contribute to health care disparity. For Lia, it was more than her skin color, it was all of the above, her parents did not speak English and they were illiterate. They had trouble understanding the American healthcare system, had trouble or little interest in adjusting to or understanding the American culture. They didn’t work, which in addition to cross cultural misunderstanding, helped contribute to animosity between the Hmong and the host community, because some in the Merced area did not like or appreciate the fact that some Hmong did not work and relied on welfare to make ends meet. All these factors, contributed to the poor quality of

Apart from her academic accomplishments, Dr. Ochoa has dedicated her life to the service of others through medicine and mentorship. “I’ve known since I could remember that I wanted a career with the purpose of helping others. I have this burning passion for service work and I’m extremely lucky to be able to combine it with my love for medicine and education.” When away from the hospital, Dr. Ochoa spends her time mentoring minority and low-income students along with her husband and fellow HSF alum, Mauricio Segovia. Also, wanting to give back to her Latino community, Dr. Ochoa donates to scholarship organizations such as HSF and the New Orleans Hispanic Heritage Foundation Scholarship.

In science and medicine, advancement and achievement occurs everyday. Unfortunately, this same progressive profession can be a microcosm for the discrimination that happens worldwide daily, and sometimes seems to be exacerbating alongside discoveries in health. It is undeniable, however disappointing, that health disparities exist. Because of biases and adversities based on an endless list of aspects including, but not limited to, location, race, gender, disability, and socioeconomic status, health disparities are extremely harmful to their victims. With a growing number of minority populations in every demographic, combating health disparities is necessary for the wellbeing of the overall population and improving medical care. My interest

Virginia Garcia’s mission statement to help those in need with an emphasis on being culturally competent aligns strongly with my goals to be a pharmacist. Growing up in East Los Angeles I came to know how much help my family needed as well as the community there. East Los Angeles is known for its world-class boxers as well as a lot of lower-income individuals primarily immigrants. When my mom, an immigrant, was pregnant with me she had to go to several clinics for help because we did not have health insurance but the quality of those clinics were not the highest. Virginia Garcia’s missions aims to curb this kind of care and focuses on individuals like my mom of low socioeconomic status and more importantly strives to provide high quality care.

Furthermore, Ms. Dixon serves currently as the Interim Chair for the Diversity Staff Alliance. Prior to this position, Ms. Dixon served as Office Coordinator for the Center for Leadership and Civic Engagement at ECU. Additionally, she worked previously at ECU’s Ledonia Wright Cultural Center as the Program Assistant. Ms. Dixon is a graduate of Liberty University's School of Business with a Master of Arts in Business Management and Leadership. Ms. Dixon is also a graduate of The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where she received a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology with a minor in African American Studies.

The underserved communities in the United States are victimized and discriminated against when it comes to the provision of proper medical health care majorly because of their ethnicity and immigrant statuses. Individuals from these communities often live in marginalized areas where health care is not easily accessible because of poor infrastructure. In addition, most of the immigrants and the marginalized minority groups that include Latino’s and African Americans are uninsured making access to proper medical services impossible. Nonetheless, the Nurse Corps has been at the center of providing care to the underserved communities by meeting their medical and non-medical needs. Given the opportunity to serve as a member of the distinguished Nurse Corps, I will find ways to interact and connect with my patients so that I am able to fully understand their backgrounds and hence initiate the proper treatment.

Hey Leon, I think that it would be great for minority practitioners and other health care professionals to practice in medically underserved areas to provide health care to vulnerable populations. To encourage health careers for individual or color, the wealthy black entrepreneur needs to reach out and give back to their communities by financially funding health scholarships and grants to help low-income families and minorities. In addition, programs need to be implemented to reach minority health professions students before they enter the job market through the loan repayment.

When I entered Cedars-Sinai in the early fall, the weather was warm and the sky was bright. I remember walking straight to the location of the first Pre-Healthcare Volunteer Program meeting. When entering the room, I saw the gleaming faces of the new volunteers yet I could not find anyone that looked like me. Surely, there was no other dark brown and dark eyed young women, it was only me. I was the only person of Hispanic background. Immediately, I felt a sense of accomplishment knowing that I had gained acceptance to a competitive program and that I was proudly representing my people in the room. Yet, as the program progressed that sense of accomplishment vanished and melancholy replaced it. Although I was the only Hispanic in my cohort, I believed that I might find other Hispanic professionals in the hospital. On the contrary, I witnessed an extreme lack of diversity in the group of physicians that worked in the hospital and more specifically in the surgical floor.

Mya grew up in a small, racist environment all her life. She was born and raised in Montgomery, Alabama. Mya mother gave birth to her at the Tuskegee Institute Hospital. The Tuskegee Institute was the first hospital blacks, african americans could go to. Growing up Mya also stayed in and out of the hospital. Mya mother, Lisa, has never been able to just go to work after her daughter was born because Mya heart has given her difficulties. Doctors constantly told them that she wasn’t going to make it and if she was she wasn’t going to make it to see 21. Receiving the news lisa informed her ex husband which was her husband at the time , she informed him about the difficulties throughout life that their daughter would and could possibly go through

My experiences as an African female who recently migrated to the US for graduate studies provide me with some commonalities with my study participants. My inability to understand and navigate the US healthcare system gives me a unique perspective as an insider to my study population. This may be the driving force behind my preference for my research topic.

At a certain point in everyone’s life, a question must be asked: what is my purpose? I found my purpose after experiencing the dark realities of medical malpractice inflicted within the African American community. My mother has been a victim of malpractice. She almost lost her third daughter as a consequence of negligent medical care. This affected my mother’s mental health, causing her to be skeptical of medical assistance. After this terrible incident, her problems did not end there. She was injected with the wrong fluids in her knee. Consequently, she was not able to walk properly for two months. I have come to the realization that there are needs in the black community that are not being attended to. I believe it is my purpose to reestablish trust between the black community and Doctors. To achieve this objective, I seek a career in medicine as a Primary Family Physician.

I had the privilege of interviewing a close friend that will go by the name K for the duration of this interview report. K is a twenty-one year old female, who has half Filipino, half Spaniard ethnic roots, and identifies as part of the LGBTQ+ community. She is currently completing her third year at UC San Diego as a Pharmacological-Chemistry major, and hopes to continue on to graduate school and one-day hold a career as a Pharmacist. However, throughout the large majority of her life, K has faced significant barriers in receiving access to necessary health care services.

At the young age of 10, my native born Filipino mother was adopted by her aunt in Canada and shipped across the world to a place unknown to her. The reason behind this adoption came for two reasons: the first being poverty and the second being favoritism. While my mother wasn 't unloved, she certainly wasn 't the favorite among her siblings. This, along with her family 's deepening poverty, was the catalyst for a life changing event. Scared and inexperienced with any culture other than her own, she looked for answers and comfort before leaving. I can distinctly remember her telling me the story for the first time; her father bringing her to the airport, holding her while she cried and begged to stay, and slipping a small