Part 2: Interview with Dr. Elena Rios, President, National Hispanic Medical Association and the National Hispanic Health Foundation
Where are you originally from? From the Los Angeles area. My grandparents came from Mexico. It was during the Mexican Revolution. My father and mother’ s families ended up living across the street from each other in Cypress Park, northeast of downtown Los Angeles. They bought their first home in Pico Rivera. I went to high school in the area at Sacred Heart of Mary. I went there on a math scholarship. Then I went to Stanford, so I left home when I was 18.
I was pre-med and my mother actually ended up working at the Beverly Hospital in Montebello and then became a nurse. I went to UCLA for public health school and then I went to medical school and internal medicine residency up at Santa Clara County Hospital. I did go back to UCLA for a fellowship and research. Healthcare, primary care, policy research, and the rest is history. I ended up deciding not to go into academics, but to do research for the state of California.
Please share your observations of cultural factors such as historic oppression, racism and discrimination associated with the availability of high-quality healthcare for the Hispanic community. Initially, the southwestern United States was Mexico. When 49ers came to California looking for gold they denigrated Hispanics. There’ s been a history of wiping out the Hispanic landowners. The last governor of California from Mexico was Pio Pico. After that was the influx of wealthy Americans from the East Coast. They bought the land from the families that would have inherited land. That’ s the historical oppression. The other historic oppression is the redlining of where you can live and the discrimination in neighborhoods. In my parents’ generation in the 1950s, Mexicans couldn’ t go to the public swimming pools and the hospitals were discriminated against us.
That all changed in the 1960s when hospital discrimination was stopped by the federal government by giving more money to the hospitals. The other big thing in Los Angeles was the Latina women, Mexican women had their tubes tied without them knowing. Discrimination against women, and discrimination in education with segregation of schools. All that that happened before the Brown Versus Board of Education Decision.
Are there wide disparities between how the immigrant populations view the American health system versus native born, even college-educated Hispanics? How do younger Latinos tend to view the healthcare system versus their elders? It has to do with having less access to insurance. There’ s much less access for immigrant populations because they are fearful. They mistrust government, mistrust applications for insurance. They come from countries where they don’ t have to apply for insurance. Here, you have to apply, and they don’ t want to, in fear of being deported.
Immigrant families may have kids that are citizens. They were born here, but the parents might not be. The mixed family situation in terms of how they view the health system. College educated Hispanics, have more information about prevention of disease and wanting to utilize the healthcare system in a better way; not just wait till they’ re on their deathbed to go to the hospital. Or people say they don’ t want to go to the hospital because they’ ll just die there.
Most people think that that our immigrant Latinos don’ t have insurance or don’ t have money, or are working two jobs and don’ t have time to go to a doctor, but if they they’ re really sick and they go to a hospital, they might have severe complications from chronic diseases like high blood pressure and they’ re having strokes or diabetes, and they have to have amputations or fight cancer that’ s Stage Four. You have this fear of going to hospitals. Younger people have more access to information, 24 / 7 on the apps and internet. They’ re more aware of nutrition and physical exercise and healthier lifestyles. They’ re probably more aware of the importance of feeling better or getting to the healthcare system. But we still have a large percentage of Hispanics in the country who are uninsured.
How do you and your colleagues play a role as Latino healthcare leaders in acculturating, both native born and immigrant families to navigate this American health system?
CDU College of Medicine | PG. 10