7 minute read
Hays Latinos United Works To Erase Racial Disparities
Hays Latinos United
Works To Erase Racial Disparities
By Megan Wehring
Witnessing communities of color face barriers throughout the COVID-19 pandemic inspired Michelle Cohen to do something to help.
Hays Latinos United, created in 2020, is a community organization formed as a direct response to the disparities of the Latino community and other people of color, which started with the onset of COVID-19. Latinos were asked to be at the front lines of the pandemic as essential workers and when the state opened up, they were asked to return to work with little protection for themselves and their families.
Cohen said that right at the beginning of the summer of 2020, she learned that communities of color were getting the most confirmed cases of COVID-19 at the national level. It left her with one question: What about in Hays County?
She wrote a letter to the county asking if it could release the demographics because she believed it was important for the community to understand how it was doing in relation to COVID-19. Eventually, they released the demographics.
“Latinos were leading in every category related to COVID: confirmed cases, the deaths, hospitalizations [and] positivity rates,” Cohen said. “They were the most impacted.”
The lack of organized efforts to provide resources at the beginning of the pandemic drove Cohen to start her own.
“Food was beginning to become a scarce resource. I started seeing stores charging $10 for a mask and I thought that a struggling family is not going to buy a mask over food,” Cohen said. “What I started doing is buying my own masks and hanging out at the COVID-19 testing centers. I would stand there with a table [and] I would offer masks to anybody who walked by. With me and a few other community leaders, we did our own PPE drive once or twice a month. It was all self-funded with donated materials.”
Within the past two years, Hays Latinos United has become a source for anything ranging from COVID-19 resources, food, water, school supplies and getting its wellness partners to provide resource information in both English and Spanish.
“I’ve really started focusing on making sure that we provide bilingual information because we were fighting the misinformation this entire time and we still do,” Cohen said.
While the organization has come a long way since the beginning and has positively impacted the community, it still faces barriers including the lack of community infrastructure on the east side of the county.
“There are no libraries, community centers or buildings for us to access,” Cohen said. “I have to use little venues that may be used for a quinceañera [or] birthday party like Gemstone Palace. They donate space for us for our vaccine events.”
Currently, Cohen’s main goal is to reach 50% full vaccination of the Hispanic population in Hays County.
“Right now, we are nowhere near that,” Cohen said. “We have over 94,000 that live in this county and maybe 24,000 are actually fully vaccinated.”
To learn more about Hays Latinos United, please visit https:// www.hayslatinosunited.org/.
Contributed photo
Several community partners work with Hays Latinos United. Michelle Cohen stands with Officer James Plant, recruiting and community outreach officer for Kyle PD.
who are also trying to navigate between cultures while possibly facing discrimination.
Martha Lujan is a mental health specialist and community health worker at the UT School of Nursing Social Resource Center in Del Valle and a NAMI volunteer. Her hands-on role allows her to also see these barriers and help the community work through them.
“It does take a level of healing process. You have to come to a place in your life where you can understand your own behavior,” Lujan said. “It's a cycle. You want to break that cycle. When you seek counseling, therapy, support groups, resources, that is part of your healing.”
Mental health stigma within the Hispanic/Latinx community is especially not lost on Lujan: “We don’t do that; we don’t have anxiety; we don’t take medication; you’re just bored, you need to go do something,” are common justifications, she said.
“I feel that my people have a lot of healing to do,” Lujan said. “We are trying to make sure these conversations in Spanish are normalized, that these feelings are normalized, that there's a safe place for them to speak about.”
Lujan also acknowledged that barriers, whether it’s the stigma, language, money, insurance, documentation or even just day-to-day work life, need to be addressed so people can be met where they’re at with support.
“When you get to that point and you know it’s a safe space, you’ve gone through hell and back, it’s [about] access,” Lujan said. “When they get to that point and do not have the access, that’s a barrier. They give up. … It’s survival. If it’s not there asap, you will lose that person.”
Although the system still has a lot of work to do, especially for the Hispanic/Latinx population, community members like Gruwell and Lujan have cemented themselves as being part of the solution committed to providing mental health care access to all.
“When you discover something so peaceful, you discover a place where you can be yourself and talk about it, and you want to give that to the other person,” Lujan said. “I wish I could show them what their journey could be. … We all have different backgrounds and traumas. We’re at different levels. Being able to give people hope, that’s what pushes me. … Just to feel some peace.”
For more information on how to get Spanish-language mental health support, visit www.namicentraltx.org/en-espanol. NAMI’s phone line also offers bilingual services at (512) 420-9810.
SALUD MENTAL, from page 9
diagnostiquen erróneamente a los pacientes hispanos/latinos si no comprenden cómo la cultura de sus pacientes influye en su interpretación de lo que sienten. • Aculturación. La asimilación a la cultura predominante puede desempeñar un papel en la salud mental y el acceso a la atención, y el proceso puede ser estresante para las comunidades hispanas/ latinas que también están tratando de navegar entre las culturas mientras posiblemente se enfrentan a la discriminación.
Martha Luján es especialista en salud mental y trabajadora de salud comunitaria en el Centro de Recursos Sociales de la Escuela de Enfermería de la UT en Del Valle y voluntaria de NAMI. Su papel práctico le permite ver también estas barreras y ayudar a la comunidad a superarlas.
“Hace falta un nivel de proceso de curación. Tienes que llegar a un lugar en tu vida donde puedas entender tu propio comportamiento”, dijo Luján. “Es un ciclo. Quieres romper ese ciclo. Cuando buscas asesoramiento, terapia, grupos de apoyo, recursos, eso es parte de tu curación”.
El estigma de la salud mental dentro de la comunidad hispana/ latina no pasa desapercibido para Luján: “Nosotros no hacemos eso; no tenemos ansiedad; no tomamos medicación; simplemente estás aburrido, necesitas ir a hacer algo”, son justificaciones comunes, dijo.
“Siento que mi gente tiene mucho que sanar”, dijo Luján. “Estamos tratando de asegurarnos de que estas conversaciones en español se normalicen, que estos sentimientos se normalicen, que haya un lugar seguro para que hablen”.
Luján también reconoció que las barreras, ya sea el estigma, el idioma, el dinero, el seguro, la documentación o incluso sólo el día a día en el trabajo, deben ser abordadas para que las personas puedan ser atendidas donde se encuentran con apoyo.
“Cuando se llega a ese punto y se sabe que es un espacio seguro, se ha pasado por el infierno y la espalda, se trata [de] el acceso”, dijo Luján. “Cuando llegan a ese punto y no tienen el acceso, eso es una barrera. Se rinden. ... Es una cuestión de supervivencia. Si no está ahí cuanto antes, perderás a esa persona”.
Aunque el sistema todavía tiene mucho trabajo por hacer, especialmente para la población hispana/latina, los miembros de la comunidad como Gruwell y Luján se han consolidado como parte de la solución comprometida con el acceso a la salud mental para todos.
“Cuando descubres algo tan tranquilo, descubres un lugar donde puedes ser tú mismo y hablar de ello, y quieres dar eso a la otra persona”, dijo Luján. “Me gustaría poder mostrarles lo que puede ser su viaje. ... Todos tenemos antecedentes y traumas diferentes. Estamos en diferentes niveles. Ser capaz de dar esperanza a la gente, eso es lo que me empuja. ... Sólo para sentir algo de paz”.
Para obtener más información sobre cómo obtener apoyo para la salud mental en español, visite www.namicentraltx.org/en-espanol. La línea telefónica de NAMI también ofrece servicios bilingües en el (512) 420-9810.
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