Dorothy’s Narrative: From her Philippine Heritage to Building Nicaraguan Health Care
I was born in Los Angeles, California on December 8, 1930 during the Great Depression. My mother was second
generation Mexican-American and my father, Filipino. The Oriental Exclusion Laws prohibited Asian men from marrying white women; a law not repealed until the 1950’s. We were very poor, and I was considered a “bastard”. I experienced very early the classism and racism imposed by the dominant, white society.
Since I was a small child I have wanted to be a nurse. I remember bringing home small, injured animals and trying to repair them. As I look back, I understand that I was trying to mend my own brokenness. As I grew older I began to understand that my healing was reliant on and intertwined with the healing of others.
After being expelled from my second year high school I went to the Philippines with my father to find a high school from which I could graduate. The strict Dominican sisters at Santa Catarina in Intramuros saw that this happened. At the University of Santo Tomas I sought admission to nursing school. I was refused and told that I was not suited for nursing and should study medicine instead. My family was upper-class and did not support my desire to study nursing. I reluctantly left the Islands to return to nursing school in Los Angeles. This was sad since I had come to love the country and its warm, generous people.
Through trying to understand what causes illness I have also learned that political, economic and religious ambitions are often the root causes of poverty, war, displacement and social disorder. These forces create illness and prevent health. Health requires an environment of tranquility that enables the development of those elements that promote health: human rights, decent work, clean water, adequate food, care of the environment and basic health ser-vices.
Nursing has led me to be active in efforts to eliminate the death penalty, prevent nuclear war, and accompany the leadership of families of those that disappeared in Guatemala. The path ultimately brought me to Nicaragua where the United States was waging war against a poor country whose government was brought to power by popular struggle against a U.S. supported dictatorship. In Nicaragua, still at war when I arrived in 1985, it seemed that I could be most useful by joining a group of war displaced women to help them in the work of re-building their community. Through a small health clinic, whose core was women’s health, we worked to create conditions to support a healthy community including reconciliation of former enemies.
Currently I am working with Traditional Midwives and other Community Health Workers to help them improve their already vast store of skills and create conditions for healthy families and communities to the end that there are no more maternal and infant death. The health system in Nicaragua has improved greatly; however, traditional health workers in communities need continuing education and consistent support in order to help them do the essential work to create better conditions of health.
The greatest challenges, to date, have been the illiteracy of nearly half of the Midwives and Health Workers as well as a lack of appreciation of the workers vital importance on the part of some nurses and doctors in the health department. To respond to the lack of literacy, workers are being enrolled in literacy classes. To gain the respect of “professional” health workers, we are working hard to up-grade the performance of Midwives and Community Health Workers. As the workers’ performance improves, health indicators will improve. The greatest gain of the program is the enthusiastic response of the Traditional Midwives and Community Health Workers who are eager to learn new skills and improve old knowledge. Traditional Midwives and Community Health Workers are the heroes of the health system.
I would ask young people and health workers to look into their hearts and find their dreams and their pain, and work toward healing as they realize their deepest dreams. The people of the Philippines have a rich history of resistance to oppression as well as an understanding of what it is to be a human being.
Dorothy Granada, 29 July, 2012, Matagalpa, Nicaragua