Photo credit: Erin Bloodgood
Maria Miramontes
As a young girl growing up in Guadalajara, Mexico, Maria Miramontes vividly remembers her parents welcoming people from their community into their home and helping them with their daily struggles. She recalls her father reading the newspaper every morning, learning how current events affected his community. He didn’t have much schooling, she explains, but he would teach himself enough politics and law to be the man that people came to for advice. Similarly, Miramontes describes her mother as one who would accept anyone into their home if they needed assistance, whether she knew them or not.
Her mother would tell her children that, if they were ever in need one day, she hoped a stranger would offer them the same hospitality. The values Miramontes learned from her parents stayed with her into her adult life and led her to her career in Milwaukee. However, the road she took to get where she is today was not always clear.
Twenty-one years ago, Miramontes made one of the hardest decisions of her life: to get married and move to the U.S. with her new husband. She left her family and friends behind and came to a culture where people live more separately from one another. “I felt isolated,” she said. At the time, she didn’t speak English and didn’t know how to meet new people. Eventually, however, she learned English at Centro Hispanico Milwaukee, a community organization serving Latinos, and began meeting people who understood what she was going through.
Miramontes finally found the place where she could be herself when Centro Hispanico recommended her to CORE El Centro, a non-profit that offers healing and wellness services at affordable rates. Miramontes first came to CORE as a client. She was drawn to the fact that the people at CORE make a strong effort to understand people’s cultural backgrounds when helping them heal. The organization has taught her that a person’s culture and daily life are significant factors that contribute to his or her health.
Years later, Miramontes transitioned to become a volunteer at CORE and is now employed there as a health navigator. When new clients come to CORE looking for help, she is one of the first people they meet. She listens to their struggles, asks them about other doctors or therapists they have seen and takes time to get to know them before referring them to the ideal place for healing. She gives them very personalized care—spending anywhere from an hour to months with a client. As she explains, the experience has taught her to put herself in the client’s shoes and to never assume that she knows what they are going through. To understand someone else’s life, it takes time.
|
|
Miramontes thinks back to the genuine love and support her parents gave to others and traces her path to CORE. “I have always wanted to help people, and that is what I’m doing,” she says. She can relate to the many immigrants in the Milwaukee area and learns from those with different stories from her own, helping them to find their path to a healthier life.
Learn more at core-elcentro.org. For more of Erin Bloodgood’s work, visit bloodgoodfoto.com.
