That Was Me: Latin American Individuals and Identities in Medicine
#Communities
Maria Juarez-Reyes, PhD, MD; Dalia VanderZee, Department of Medicine staff; and Enrique Menendez, Department of Medicine staff
No two people are the same, especially in the Latin American community.
“I am different from others – we are all different in the Latin American community,” says Associate Director of Finance and Administration, Enrique Menendez.
Despite this, many still unfairly dismiss this widely diverse population of Americans. Menendez saw this when he first arrived in the United States from Guatemala more than 30 years ago. It took months for him to find employment, even though he already had a medical degree.
“Not even McDonald’s wanted to take a chance on me. It really was incredible,” Menendez remembers.
His first chance came from what might seem an unlikely place in such a prejudiced environment.
“I started working, actually, at Stanford, believe it or not,” Menendez laughs. “Even though I was rejected by everybody else, the only group, the only company that took a chance to hire me, was Stanford.”
Menendez’s expertise in medical research led him to administrative positions at UCSF and now back at Stanford. He capitalized on that first opportunity to create a career, proving again and again that he is a uniquely talented professional.
Being given that opportunity to succeed is crucial for members of the Latin American community who are often denied the chances their white counterparts get.
“When somebody comes to you, like I did with my chief, and says, ‘Hey, I’d really like to do this,’ say, ‘Go! Do it!’” Clinical Associate Professor of Primary Care and Population Health Maria Juarez-Reyes, PhD, MD, nods.
When Juarez-Reyes wanted to institute a new practice of behavioral health group medical visits in the Division of Primary Care and Population Health, Division Chief Sang-ick Chang, MD, gave her the go-ahead. She is grateful for that approval, but approval for such medically generative projects should be the norm for Latin American medical professionals, not contingent upon individual supervisors.
“I was bold enough to ask. He was generous enough to offer support. Offer that space more. People have ideas. Just encourage them,” Juarez-Reyes emphasizes.
“Latino medical students and African American students are still struggling at Stanford. That should not be a culture here anymore. Start figuring out what we’re missing by talking to them. How can we make this culture better?”
– Maria Juarez-Reyes, PhD, MD
Far too often, medical institutions don’t offer that space and instead enable others to dismiss Latin American individuals with talent and experience.
“I’ve had physicians say, ‘What are you doing here? Why are you telling me what to do? You’re female. You’re from México,’ because I don’t introduce myself as a trained physician,” Dalia VanderZee affirms.
VanderZee practiced medicine in Mexico before moving to the United States and now works as an administrative division director at Stanford. Despite being in the Department of Medicine, she still is greeted with disbelief when she brings up her experience as a physician.
“What? You? From México?” people ask her, to which she replies, “Yes. Sure. Me.”
Latino/a/x community members don’t only face pressures to perform a certain identity from outside the community. Such pressure to be “correct” even comes from within the Latin American community, an extension of pressures to conform to ideas of what being “Latino/a/x” means. When VanderZee finished the paperwork to live in America, her lawyers told her that she would have more success getting jobs in the U.S. if she took her Dutch husband’s last name.
“So, I did. My dad was not very happy,” VanderZee says. “I also have been alienated from my community at times because I’m not the ‘typical migrant’ into California. Some people think you come here and work in the fields or you come here without papers. I’ve had the privilege of coming here differently. That doesn’t mean I’m going to lose my Mexican identity. There are a lot of people who don’t understand it, people who are going to resent it, and people who say, ‘You are one of us.’”
With such pressures on Latin Americans to perform, both within and outside the medical community, institutions need to reduce the disparities that they create. This gives Latino/a/x medical professionals the same space to excel as their peers.
“Latino medical students and African American students are still struggling at Stanford. That should not be a culture here anymore,” Juarez-Reyes states sternly. “Start figuring out what we’re missing by talking to them. How can we make this culture better?”
Juarez-Reyes emphasizes that institutions can’t just focus on racial inequities among students and positions of lower authority. Stanford already focuses on medical inequities, making this the perfect place to continue positively redressing areas where we still fall short.
“Stanford is doing such a conscious effort to tackle health disparities and really looking at it from a policy standpoint and a research standpoint – which is wonderful. Can we recruit underrepresented minorities in medicine not just to be the ‘diversity chairman’?” Juarez-Reyes asks. “You want them to be the department chair, a division chief – don’t box us in.”
When institutions open doors for Latin Americans and other underrepresented minorities, they can broaden possibilities for health care and education in ways others do not imagine.
“I think the Department of Medicine is doing a concerted effort to reach out to the Latino/a/x community,” Menendez says. “They want to hear our experiences, to make sure we know about those individuals we otherwise wouldn’t know about. You don’t know what you don’t know about.”
Menendez links this back to his start at Stanford: No one knew him, but he just needed one opening to parlay that opportunity into a long career.
“I think it would be great if something like that could happen not only for people who come with a medical degree or a college background but for other individuals as well,” he says.
Regardless of the stories that each member of the Latin American community carries with them in the medical field and healthcare administration, everyone does so as an individual. An open door gives everyone a chance to show who they already are.
As VanderZee puts it, “Everything that happened after that was me.”
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