I am a first-year college student at Gordon College Massachusetts, and I am one of the few people who don’t have a hometown. I have grown up and lived in 3 different demographics that all have shaped the person I am, and especially the person I want to become in the future. With the numerous lessons that have learned while moving from town to town, I realized that the most important aspect while growing up is the support of your community. I have learned that you cannot get far into your career or even your personal growth without understanding the balance and importance of giving back to your community while also leaning on those around you. I was born in Greenville, Illinois but moved to Riverview, Florida when I was 3 months old. I lived in South Florida for 10 years, experiencing the heat and culture that my elementary school brought. I was able to relate to and be around people who looked and spoke like me. I then moved back to Illinois for middle school, having to grow through a large culture shift and mental transformation as my faith grew as well. I did high school in South Texas, living about 10 minutes from the border with Mexico. I studied and hung out with people who lived and breathed Mexico, but who were also incredibly conflicted with health and financial issues. As I went through high school, I began to realize that the social and political injustices that faced the people around me needed to be brought to light. I co-founded a non-profit titled the Solidarity Initiative, which focused on highlighting the racial, social, and emotional tensions that arouse in our society. We fought to include our generation in our conversations, ensuring that the people of our generation were not shying away from difficult conversations. With this social justice work, I learned about food deserts and generational cycles of medical phobias. Through this, I understood that my calling was to stand in the gap for those who were faced with these challenges and inequalities that would eventually lead to their demise. After college, I want to pursue a career in occupational therapy, exactly like Christina, focusing on a wholistic form of care where people of all ages can learn how to better take care of their body and health; from this education and experience, I hope to break the generational cycles that my family and so many other minority family’s experiences, especially within the healthcare system. People of all backgrounds, languages, and situations should have access to a healthy lifestyle, and I aspire to be the bridge for those who feel like a healthy meal or attainable exercise routine is out of their reach

For all four years of high school, I lived in South Texas, a highly Mexican immigrant region where almost every 3 of 5 people have diabetes. I would consistently wonder why the people in my community were unable to sustain a healthy lifestyle, and I would be frustrated that those resources were not easily accessible to low-income communities such as the one I reside in. Coming from a family of immigrants, it is also common for my parents and older family members to have disdain towards the medical community, and for good reason. For years their care, experience, and treatments have been taken advantage of either because they were not understood correctly or because they were already seen as less than. In the healthcare and medical field, diversity and collaboration are crucial for the patients and community because, without the virtue of inclusion that diversity brings, the care that one receives is shallow if it is not met on a cultural aspect as well. As I continue to grow in my journey through college and hopefully into occupational therapy, I have continued to see the impact that diversity brings to the medical field. The reason why my family and so many others tend to reject the health care system is due to the lack of representation or consideration for where those patients are coming from culturally, situationally, and wholistically. Ensuring that the healthcare system is surrounding itself based on “how can we help you” rather than “how can we fix you” will guide us towards the collaboration aspect that many minorities feel like they lack when they are examined. As an occupational therapist, I want to focus on the holistic care of the person, especially underserved Latinos and other minorities due to the disadvantage they receive when getting proper medical care. Through collaboration, I want to implement a structure in which they learn the reasons why their body is not functioning properly and the correct ways to prevent damages or accidents from reoccurring or even occurring in the first place. Working with the patients throughout their whole journey will allow for a deeper connection, and therefore a deeper trust with the person. Diversity will also be implemented through those who are hired and working with the patients, making sure that as many languages, backgrounds, and cultures are represented so that a patient doesn’t have to fear being misunderstood or not taken seriously for their injury. I am a freshman at Gordon College in Massachusetts, and in my first year of being a college student, I realized that community is essential for success. I participate in a racial and social advocacy group on campus called Dear Neighbor, focusing on the racial reconciliation of our campus through collaborative conversations and information for students at school. I had previous experience through my non-profit the Solidarity Initiative that I helped cofound in 2020, but with a different audience and an alternative collaboration experience, I needed to rely on those above me and around me to create informational and intentional events on campus that valued the experiences of others as well. Without understanding the necessity of asking others for help or relying on those around you for guidance, the representation I would have brought forth would be biased and opinionated; collaboration and diversity in all aspects must be included in the social impacts you create.

I have lived in 3 different towns with 3 completely different demographics and situations; I currently live in the Rio Grande Valley in South Texas, and this region is known for its issues with diabetes and lack of nutritional resources. Before I moved to Texas, I lived in rural Illinois where the closest grocery store was 30 min away – and a healthy grocery store was even farther. I grew up in Riverview, Florida, almost 20 min away from the Tampa area; my school lunches and diet would consist of whatever fast-food restaurant is closest by – and there were several of them. Living in these very different regions led me to realize that they all had a common issue – access to health resources. These resources either included spaces for learning how to exercise properly or stores to shop for fruits and vegetables. I also noticed that the areas that struggled the most, South Texas and Florida regions, were the ones with a population of Latinos. It pained me to see that my people were falling into these generational cycles of unhealthy habits and a generational fear of medical assistance throughout the process. I knew that I would like to help in a way that would break this cycle of silent death that unhealthy habits have. I am a first-year student at Gordon College in Wenham, MA, and in my first year I have recognized that my passion for health and wellness can be channeled through educating those on how to prevent their bodies from deteriorating faster than they should; I have shadowed at a local hospital in South Texas under occupational therapists, who help a range of patients get back to their state of health that they were at before their injury/accident. As l learned the implications and effects that occupational therapists have on the health journey of patients, I realized that I want to be the one to help before it even gets to the point of injury, preventing the health issue from becoming a concern on the patient. With a degree and concentration in Clinical Psychology, I want to be the bridge for under-served and misrepresented regions who lack the resources to know what it means and looks like to be a healthy person. I want to build a practice that offers classes and instructions on how to better take care of the body, inside and out, to prevent the misinformation that impoverished demographics face. In the next four years of college, I hope to learn what my communities are missing when it comes to health and wellness as well as learn from other therapists and nutritionists, understanding what it means not just to fix the patient in their injury, but to be part of the process. Once I finish my 4-year degree, I would like to go back to my South Texas community and begin implementing this practice of healthy nutrition and practices on their body to break the generational cycle of sickness. I hope to inspire and educate my fellow Latino community, encouraging them to alter their habits of neglect and defeat into ones of faith and strength.